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, January 27, 2008

Hedo the hero with 3 pt FG at buzzer to defeat BOS

Playing without star Kevin Garnett for the first time this season due to an abdominal strain, BOS (34-8) gave the Magic all it could handle until HTurkoglu's turnaround 3 PT FG at the final buzzer gave the Magic (28-18) their second dramatic buzzer-beating win in a week, 96-93 over the Celtics.

The Magic looked like they missed the wakeup call for the first half, as they showed little energy in trailing by 3 at halftime. The Magic then caught fire and went on a 29-8 run in the third qtr to go ahead 72-56. BOS then went on a 23-6 run to take the lead back early in the fourth; however, the Magic seemingly had a comfortable 91-84 lead in the final two mins before BOS came back to tie to set up the exciting finish.

Five Magic players scored in double figures, led by Turkoglu's 27 pts (8 of 18 FGs), 6 rebs; DHoward 18 pts (6 of 10 FGs), 16 rebs, 5 blocks; RLewis 15 pts (5 of 11 FGs), 6 rebs; MEvans 11 pts (5 of 8 FGs); and BCook off the bench with 11 pts (3 of 4 3 pt FGs), all in the third qtr.

Four players scored in double figures for BOS, led by Paul Pierce's 24 pts; Ray Allen added 17 pts including the game-tying three late.

The statistical breakdown:

FGs... BOS 35 of 84 (41.7%) ORL 34 of 74 (45.9%) ORL 77 BOS 77
3 PT FGs... ORL 9 of 25 (36%) BOS 7 of 18 (38.9%)
FTs... ORL 19 of 20 (95%) BOS 16 of 18 (88.9%)
REBs... ORL 43 BOS 38
AST/TO... ORL 16/20 BOS 14/11
BENCH... BOS 29 ORL 23

This was the Magic's 4th win in a row at home, and they now lead the SE by 3 games over WAS. Magic next host MIA WED night.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 7:35 PM  

8 Comments:

  • At 8:29 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Wow, what a shot by Turk! The Celts played great defense and wouldn't let him drive... no problem... just turn around and launch the game-winning three!

    Thank goodness the Magic were able to shoot so well from the FT line (19 of 20), otherwise they may very well have lost this one.

    As exciting as the win was, I feel compelled to point out several things that take some of the luster off this win... 1) The fact that BOS was without KG 2) The Magic let BOS come back from a 16 pt third qtr deficit 3) The Magic could not hold on to a 7 pt lead in the final 2 mins 4) 20 TOs by the Magic 5) An ugly stat line for starting PG Arroyo... in over 31 mins, 2 pts on 1 of 5 FGs, and 6 TOs, with just a 4/6 AST/TO ratio. Despite all that, Arroyo still had a +13 plus/minus rating.

    I won't dwell on the negative though, as the Magic did what they had to do to win this game over a BOS team that is still very good even without Garnett. Again, great job at the FT line by the Magic.

    Cook really brought the Magic some much-needed energy in the third qtr when he scored all of his 11 pts to help the Magic jump out to the 16 pt lead.

    Some +/- numbers for the game... Arroyo +13; Howard/Cook +12; Evans +8... Lewis -14; Dooling -10; Foyle -9

    Howard only had 3 FG attempts in the second half... I thought the Magic should have made a better effort to get the ball into him.

    After being relatively quiet with just 8 pts through the first 3 qtrs, Lewis scored 7 pts in the fourth, to help out Turk who scored 19 second half pts.

    Maybe the Magic are finally getting things turned around at home with 4 straight wins... the woeful Heat are next up for the Magic.

     

  • At 5:24 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    It seems to me that +/- numbers is not a good indicator of players' performance.

     

  • At 3:34 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    This game went back to what I've been saying about why Keyon Dooling isn't a point guard. With just a little pressure, he struggled to advance the ball up the floor time after time. How many times did we not even get into an offensive set because of him?

    Arroyo wasn't any better, but at least he was able to dribble the ball up the court (as any point guard should) and get the team into some kind of offense. Granted, his defense was poor, and he struggled with some turnovers. But the reason the +/- numbers were much better when Arroyo was on the floor was for that fact that we actually had the chance to do something offensively while he was out there; unlike when Dooling was.

    Personally, I'm starting to wonder if any of our "point guards" are the answer. All I see right now is that we have 3 bench players. Hopefully a healthy Jameer Nelson will change my mind, but I doubt it.

    Despite scoring 7 points in the 4th quarter, we still need a lot more out of Rashard Lewis. We need this guy to step up, and really assert himself. He is the guy that is supposed to be making the big plays and doing what Turkoglu is. That is what we paid him 118 million for right? We’d be in big trouble right now if Turk wasn’t playing the type of ball he is. I hope Turk is rewarded by being placed on the all-star team, he deserves it.

    Even though we should have blown this game open, and I have things to complain about, it was still a good win.

     

  • At 4:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Exciting win, even if it created some unnecessary heartburn. Building on Overwaded's comment:

    In my view, the Magic have two great needs: 1) a tall backcourt player who can defend and pass; and 2) a bruising backup forward who can rebound.

    As I recall, Arroyo, Dooling, Bogans, and Evans are all in the final years of their contacts. So which of these players do we want to keep for next year?

    Arroyo and Dooling are both expendable. Neither of them is significantly better or worse than Nelson (although they have different skill sets than him), but we're stuck with Nelson because of his contract extension. Ideally, we'd find a tall backcourt player (maybe someone raw in the draft?) who could eventually take over the starting position for Nelson.

    I'd love to keep Evans or Bogans, but not both of them. We have Redick on contract for another year, so we shouldn't let him sit idly if we can use use open roster spots (one at PG, another here) for our frontcourt (one for Battie, another for a bruiser). Either Evans or Bogans could start next year, with Redick as backup.

    I recognize the difficulties in acquiring new players because of salary cap. But we're only looking for raw talent and backups, not polished players.

    Lastly, on +/- figures: They're meaningful and they aren't. The + figure was meaningful for Cook, because he gave us an immediate spark (that said, I think 10 min/game is exactly the right amount of time for Cook). The figure is less meaningful for Arroyo, because he played with the starters, so his + figure is somewhat inflated. Arroyo has some gifts, but yesterday wasn't his best game.

     

  • At 7:45 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Congrats to Turk for being named the Eastern Conference player of the week for games played JAN 21-27.

    Turk averaged 25.2 pts on 49.2% FG shooting and 50% from three-point range.

     

  • At 7:55 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Good comments about the plus/minus numbers. Another reason why Arroyo had +13 was because he was in there when Cook went on his scoring binge in the third qtr, and was on the bench when BOS went on their run to take back the lead. That contributed to Dooling's -10 rating.

    I'm hoping too that a healthy Nelson will bring some stability and consistency to the PG position.

    Big Figure, where have you been all weekend? We're waiting to see some of your insights and analysis.

     

  • At 10:02 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Heck of a finish! Another win over a division leader. Looking at the teams the magic have beaten recently (detroit,boston,portland)i think its safe to say we arent in crumble mode like last year and thats all i care about. The celts are a really really good team so they'll expose weaknesses,carlos couldnt keep rondo in front of him at all,keyon couldnt get us into any sets,we didnt take care of the ball as a team,but through it all finding a way to beat them twice is something we've been able to do,pretty impressive. I also want to make one point,the magic were playing without a starter just like boston was,everybody (media)forgets that carlos isnt our starter,which means we were a man down also so neither team had an advantage,we had to play without our top point guard (which we couldve used his footspeed against rondo's quickness). As long as we get these type of efforts we'll still win games without playing perfect.

     

  • At 7:35 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    From Brian Schmitz's Sentinel Basketblog:

    Magic General Manager Otis Smith said there was no validity to an ESPN.com report that the Magic are interested in signing point guard Damon Stoudamire. Stoudamire was waived by the Memphis Grizzlies and becomes a free agent.

    Smith also reiterated that he had no plans at the moment to make any trades before the Feb. 21 trade deadline.

     

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