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.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Finally... an easy win for the Magic

Taking on the bottom-feeding, injury-depleted Memphis Grizzlies, the Magic (35-41, 23-16 home) jumped out to a 21 pt first quarter lead enroute to a 32 pt lead after three quarters and cruised to a 116-89 victory over MEM (19-59, 7-33 road), who were playing without regulars Mike Miller, Rudy Gay, and Damon Stoudamire.

All twelve Magic players scored, and no Magic player played more than 31 minutes or less than 7 minutes. The Magic were led by DHoward, who had his best offensive game in weeks with 31 pts on 10 of 13 FGs and 11 rebs; GHill and HTurkoglu each scored 15 pts; TAriza added 14 pts off the bench, and DMilicic and JRedick each chipped in with 8 pts off the bench. The five Magic starters combined to shoot 25 of 32 from the field. MEM was led by former Magic G Chucky Atkins with 18 pts.

The Magic (39 of 67, 58.2%) outscored MEM (28 of 74, 37.8%) from the field 81-59. Both teams shot 3 of 9 from 3 pt range. The Magic (35 of 44) also had the FT edge over MEM (30 of 45). The Magic outrebounded MEM 40-37. The Magic did have 16 TOs, but had a better AST/TO ratio (23/16) than MEM (14-13). The Magic bench outscored the MEM bench 47-39.

With IND and NJ also winning SAT night, the playoff standings remain the same, with the Magic in the 8th spot one game behind NJ and one game ahead of IND. Magic finish up with 4 of their final 6 games on the road, beginning with a 3 game trip MON night at MIL.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 10:58 PM  

7 Comments:

  • At 11:40 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    I know... this win is nothing to get too excited about. The Florida Gators probably could have beaten the injury-depleted Grizzlies by 20+ pts.

    Regardless, it was good to see the Magic dominate for once, with a complete performance on offense and defense.

    Now if only they could play like this against the better teams...

     

  • At 2:19 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    It is obvious now that Magic cannot catch up with NJ, partly because we counted two NJ/WAS games as losses for NJ, but no more in the absence of Arenas and Butler. Additionally, Jefferson is making long strides in coming back. Magic now has a more difficult schedule than IND, and as bad as IND is playing right now, one can never discount the fact that Magic is not that good neither. Let's assume that out of the 6 games left Magic may go 4-2 (losing to DET and MIA although the game at PHI is not easy). IND has one tough road game against MIA and one home game against NJ out of 6 games left. They may go 5-1 and tie with the Magic. I don't know which team has the tie-breaker advantage (I guess IND does).

     

  • At 3:09 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    I don't know how much it matters. Obviously I'd rather see the Magic in the 7th spot than the 8th. The 8th spot is almost a guaranteed embarrassment. However, I'm not sure what NJ, IND, or the Magic's schedule are, but they all equally stink and are all capable of losing any of their games. I'm either hoping for a miracle finish that puts us in the 7th spot, or just to fall out of the playoffs. If we miss the playoffs, the heat will really be on the Magic organization to make changes. And regardless if we resign Darko and sign a free agent like R Lewis, if we come back again with Brian Hill as our coach, it's hard for me to get excited even a little. I HATE Brian Hill.

     

  • At 3:28 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Good win for a BAD TEAM!!!!! Thats all i have to say for the rest of this year when it comes to individual games for this team. I no longer hope for the playoffs,my only wish is bsh's firing.

     

  • At 4:06 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Thr remaining schedule for the Magic, IND, and NJ:

    The Magic:

    9th) at MIL
    11th) at DET
    14th) at PHI
    15th) BOS
    17th) at WAS
    18th) MIA

    The Pacers:

    10th) at PHI
    11th) at MIL
    13th) at MIA
    15th) NJ
    17th) at ATL
    18th) WAS

    The Nets:

    10th) at WAS
    12th) at CLE
    13th) NY
    15th) at IND
    16th) at NY
    18th) CHI

    Regarding tiebreakers, the Magic would lose the tiebreaker to both NJ and IND, based on the fact both teams would have a better conference record than the Magic.

    All three teams each have 4 road games and 2 home games remaining.

    It's kind of hard to project wins and losses for all 3 teams the rest of the way, because all 3 have been so inconsistent all season.

    Technically, the Magic still have an outside chance of catching WAS also. They trail the Wizards by 4 games with 6 games remaining.

    I still believe the Magic will beat out IND for the 8th spot, and maybe even NJ for the 7th spot if the Magic can win 4 of their final 6 games, but I'm not counting on it.

     

  • At 5:03 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    Thank you for detailed breakdown, Mike. I had glanced over the schedules of IND and Magic and IND has a lighter schedule than Magic. They have strung some wins together including one over SA. However, I failed to point out that NJ's schedule is still a tough one. For all practical purposes, bringing in WAS is a smart point by Mike, and may be that could be the way of making to the 7th spot, namely over WAS not NJ, at which case NJ will move to 6th. Not that it matters much to me or creates any excitement.

     

  • At 9:29 PM, Blogger Ken said…

    WOW!! the Magic beat the worst team in the NBA, BSH must be really proud. I'm with big, my only wish is for bsh's firing.

     

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