Orlando Magic Blog

Group Blog talking about the NBA 2009 Eastern Conference Champions. Due to the amazing success of the 2009 playoff run comments are now frequently deleted to kill offensive comments, incoherence, or asininity. Comments can no longer be anonymous and require either a Blogger or OpenID account.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Magic stop long Heat winning streak in dominant fashion

17 Comments:

At 10:07 PM, Mike from Illinois said…

The Magic (31-37, 11-23 road), coming off a deflating loss to SAC SAT night, faced the daunting task of trying to stop the MIA 9 game winning streak and 14 game home winning streak. The Magic came to play SUN, received balanced scoring and stunned the Heat in a surprisingly easy 97-83 final, as MIA was never able to pull closer than 12 pts in the second half.

The Magic had 5 players score in double figures, led by HTurkoglu with 20 pts on 8 of 18 FGs; DHoward 17 pts on 6 of 6 FGs and 11 rebs; JNelson 11 pts, 6 asts; DMilicic off the bench with 12 pts, 10 rebs; and JRedick also off the bench with 10 pts.
MIA, in addition to missing star Dwyane Wade, also was missing Jason Kapono and Gary Payton. They were led by Shaquille O'Neal with 20 pts, 4 rebs; James Posey added 14 pts.

The Magic (38 of 76, 50%) outscored MIA (29 of 71, 40.8%) from the field 80-62. The Magic hit on 4 of 10 3 pt FGs, while MIA was just 4 of 22 from long range. MIA (21 of 30) had a slight edge at the FT line over the Magic (17 of 22). The Magic had a solid rebounding edge 44-34. The Magic only had 11 TOs, but MIA had a slightly better AST/TO ratio of 17/8, compared to 16/11 for the Magic. The Magic bench came up strong again, outscoring the MIA bench 39-32.

A very important win for the Magic, as both NJ and NY also won on SUN. Magic are now 1/2 game behind both NJ and IND for a playoff spot. Magic have 2 days off, then try yet again for a 2 game winning streak at TOR WED night.
At 10:30 PM, Big Figure said…

I had a feeling we'd beat the heat,they're pretty much the same type of slow team that utah is,take away wade and kapono and they're a shell of themselves even though they had been playing well as of late. The magic stayed out of foul trouble and the rotations were perfect,we got much better offensive efforts from the starters and the bench played well again with jj and keyon in the back-court,i have to give bsh credit for making the changes and sticking with them,carlos is no longer our back-up point guard,and keyon is no longer our back-up shooting guard,and that position wasnt given to keith bogans,it was given to jj,i can root for this team.
At 10:40 PM, Mike from Illinois said…

Also, this was only MIA's second home loss during the months of FEB and MAR in the last 3 years. Very impressive for the Magic to forget about the loss to SAC SAT night and keeping their focus on what they had to do to stop the Heat's long winning streak and get back in the playoff picture.

Even though GHill had another poor offensive game with just 2 pts in 24 minutes, TBattie, DHoward, and HTurkoglu combined for 45 pts, which was certainly better than their combined 10 pts against SAC. Another strong performance from the bench too, with 4 players scoring at least 7 pts.

Good defensive job by the Magic, holding Shaq to just 4 rebs and limiting the Heat to just 40.8% FG shooting, as the Heat had been shooting really well lately.

Big Figure, excellent post-game analysis of the Magic/SAC game. I was really frustrated on how they lost the game, but after reading your comments, I didn't feel so bad... and you may very well be right... the Magic may win more than they lose the rest of the way, as long as the same player rotations and style of play is utilized by BHill. It took a lot of guts on your part to blame the players for the SAC loss more than BHill, because I know you can't stand BHill.

Matt, I had a chance to look over at the Sentinel Blog, and I noticed the testy exchanges on there between you and "Captain Jim." Obviously, very few people will agree with Captain Jim's assertion that BHill has talent and experience to win in the NBA, but don't let it get personal with this guy "Captain Jim". You have a lot more facts backing up your stance than he does for his stance.
At 11:31 PM, Matt said…

Mike, in any campaign you should never allow a condescending minority view to stand. You ought to crush it right away. That's the first lesson in politics which I learned as a young student of political science.
At 1:24 AM, OVERWADED said…

While I'm not the biggest fan of Grant Hill and his role with the Magic; his play as of late or lack there of, has even surprised me.

The loss against the Kings was a tough one. However, I think BIG hit the point. With foul trouble, and Hedo not being able to play, it threw a screw in are new found rotation. We were forced to play with Nelson and Dooling in the backcourt together, which wasn't that great. BIG also pointed out some other lineups we ran with, and it was just tough with a few guys out. Then add the fact that Dwight had an off night. He was missing all the shots he normally makes, and that doesn't happen often. But I think some of that had to do with Hedo not playing, and we played with some lineups that didn't spread the floor at all. Onto tonight...

Tonight on the other hand, we got back to the normal rotation, and things went smooth. It'll be interesting to see if they stick to this rotation. There are some seriously pissed off Hispanic fans because of Arroyo's benching. Myself; I really hope our rotation stays the same. At this point, I like the change in scenery with Dooling backing up Nelson. As many of you have pointed out, when Arroyo came into the game, he'd play exactly the same as Nelson, and did nothing to change the pace of the game. His poor shooting, lack of passing, and horrible defense wasn't doing anything for us either. Let's stick with Dooling...AS A BACKUP POINT GUARD!

I can't even say how happy I am to see Redick playing every game. It's a shame it took so long. And the guy delivers; talk about a PRO. He's had a really rough season (mainly because of B Hill), and for a rookie to come out and do what he's doing in this situation is impressive. He's only going to get better.
At 10:11 AM, Big Figure said…

Mike,intro,thanks for the recognition and kind words,and mike your right i thought i would get killed about the sac post game analysis,but i said to hell with grudges i have to tell the truth,now i veiw hill and the team completely different,to me every game we see this new rotation and our point guards pushing the ball, bsh is apologizing to us as fans,he's basically saying he made a mistake,and the line-up changes and new offensive tempo are his way of making everything right(for at least the end of this year),we've only played 3 games and we're 2-1 as a brand new team,i very curious to see how we match-up with toronto playing the way we play now,toronto is very much like sac.
At 10:13 AM, Big Figure said…

If hedo doesnt go out with a half time sickness against sac,there's no doubt in my mind we're 3-0 right now as a new team.
At 10:41 AM, Matt said…

Big Figure, you were right on the money about your assessment of SAC's game, and of course credit should be given when due. But I think we cannot fall on the extreme side. As you have mentioned, with a better rotation putting in shooters -like J.J. and Keith - when offense had bogged down, or as I have mentioned, increasing defensive intensity by using Keyon more than Jameer to contain Bibbi and Martin, may have won the game for us.

I still discredit Hill when he makes mistakes, like not starting Darko. I also would not go as far as calling the rotation perfect last night when Hill brings in Jameer inexplicably for Keyon, and Miami cuts into the lead, as happened with SAC. Why wouldn't he put in a more defensive minded guard to preserve the lead when there are shooters in Hedo and J.J. to compensate for Keyon's shooting deficiency?
At 11:14 AM, Big Figure said…

Matt i call the rotations perfect because i beleive they are,keyon was first off the bench and only played the point,JJ came of the bench for grant and did his thing as a shooting guard,to me thats perfect and all i ask for on a regular basis,bringing jameer in for keyon is never a arguement because jameer is the starter. Now you could argue who should play more? Or who should be the starter? But not bringing back in your starter!Also,last night keyon couldnt play for-ever so at some point jameer had to be brought back in anyway,and in my opinion when you win by 20pts there's nothing to gripe about from the coaching standpoint,i've already gotten used to not seeing keith or carlos so i wont make any cases for them to play.In my opinion the only real arguement with hill is the darko for battie issue,which i beleive darko would be alot better than he was during battie's injury benefiting from our new style of play.
At 12:26 PM, Big Figure said…

Having that said,i'll never become a fan of hill,but i will root for this team with the obvious changes that have made us a ton better,i dont think there's anything wrong with discrediting hill when he makes a mistake just like we can credit him for making the changes,it goes both ways if we're going to be fair. Getting the rotations in order and designing a new style of play are having the same type of impact that we got when we traded for carlos,darko and trevor,but this year we're still in the hunt,with a magic win and a jersey loss we'll take over the 7th seed,we can give cleveland a run for their money in my opinion,and the more i think about the match-ups the more i think we could beat cleveland,but only playing with this style and rotation.
At 1:25 PM, Matt said…

Well said, Big Figure. Once again, we are torn between rooting for our beloved team and trying to get Hill out of here, since his long-term tenure does not bid well for the team. The recent changes was forced on Hill by somebody, whomever that may be, because his job was on the line. If Hill is around and out of jeopardy, he could easily fall back on the mode of operation that he is comfortable with. Could Magic make to the 7th spot? Quite possible. If they do, could they beat Cleveland in a best of seven series? Doubtful. The reason being this group of talented players are not a team, thanks to the clueless Hill, who resisted the right combination of players to excel together from the start of the season. As it stands, Magic can beat anybody based on talent on any given night, and yet may lose to anybody based on lack of offensive and defensive systems, especially the former. Would I be happy if Magic makes to the playoffs, which they probably would, thanks to miserable East? Absolutely, but then I would hope that does not mean that we are stuck with Hill for another year because the damage of that happening outweighs the benefits of having our young players to have a taste of play-offs for the first time. But then, as Mike mentioned, they may not fire Hill even if the team doesn't make to the play-offs. So whatever happens I am bound to accept since I have no control over the outcome.
At 3:17 PM, Matt said…

One last note; the public outrage against Hill was overwhelming based on Sentinel's posts to the extent that he could have endured a loss to Miami but not much after that, not even to TOR in my view.
At 5:58 PM, Big Figure said…

The next 5 games should tell us where we are,all except one is positioning themselves for the playoffs (boston),and if we gets wins over jersey,the knicks and the pacers,that would go along way in getting to that 7th spot.
At 7:52 PM, Mike from Illinois said…

Excellent comments by all...

Let me expand on OVERWADED's comments about J.J. Redick... obviously, he is going to be such a key in this new player rotation, because he is so good at getting off his shots and spreading the opposing defense because of his long-range accuracy.

All season long we have been saying how J.J. deserves to be getting playing time, and now he's finally getting it, and the numbers he's put up in the last 3 games show what an asset he is to the Magic.

I'm sure Redick got down having to spend so many games at the end of the bench, but to his credit, he didn't sulk or cause any problems within the team complaining about lack of playing time. He's showing everyone he definitely deserves the playing time now.

GO MAGIC!!
At 8:00 PM, Matt said…

Neither of those 5 games are on a back-to-back for the Magic. The game after is with TOR in Orlando, and TOR is coming from a back-to-back with Miami. Where would we be without Miami softening up some of these teams for us?
At 1:24 PM, Big Figure said…

After tonight the magic should take-over the 7th spot,i'm not hoping for those teams to lose but looking at how they've faired this season you cant expect for all three to win out west against winning teams,jersey,indiana and new york all very well may lose tonight.
At 9:56 PM, Matt said…

Magic can do no better than 8th spot after tonight because they loose the tier-breaker to NJ. If IND looses tonight, Magic will earn the 8th spot behind NJ. To pass NJ they have to win tomorrow night.

2009 Eastern Conference Champs