Pistons keep their stranglehold on Magic
If ever the Magic were going to beat the Pistons, it was going to be Friday night. The Pistons came into the game losers of eight in a row while the Magic had won 3 of 4 games since the arrival of new point guard Rafer Alston.
The Pistons made a major change in their starting lineup, putting Richard "Rip" Hamilton at shooting guard and Henry Stuckey at point guard, while Allen Iverson was inactive with a strained back. That made a huge difference for the Pistons, with Hamilton scoring 31 points as the Pistons overcame a 47-38 second quarter deficit and a 51-43 halftime deficit to the Magic by outscoring them 50-34 in the second half to beat the Magic yet again 93-85.
The Pistons led 71-65 after their big third quarter. The Magic were able to pull within one point on a couple of occasions in the fourth, but the Pistons held off the Magic and pulled away to win by eight points.
Magic leading scorers
Dwight Howard: 21 points (7 of 12 field goals), 13 rebounds
Rafer Alston: 14 points (6 of 11 field goals), 6 assists, 3 steals
Hedo Turkoglu: 13 points (4 of 12 field goals)
Detroit leading scorers
Richard Hamilton: 31 points (11 of 18 field goals), 6 assists
Rodney Stuckey: 22 points (9 of 15 field goals)
Tayshaun Prince: 17 points
Overall Game Statistics
FG%: DET 49.3% (36 of 73) ORL 47.1% (33 of 70)
3 PT FG%: DET 28.6% (2 of 7) ORL 21.1% (4 of 19)
FT%: DET 79.2% (19 of 24) ORL 68.2% (15 of 22)
REB: DET 38 (11 offensive) ORL 28 (7 offensive)
AST/TO: ORL 16/11 DET 15/15
BENCH: ORL 16 DET 9
Other game notes and stats:
-The Pistons outshot the Magic from the field, the three point line, the free throw line, and outrebounded the Magic by ten
-Hamilton and Stuckey combined for 53 points on 20 for 33 shooting
-The Pistons' starters outscored the Magic starters 84-69
-The Magic shot 29 of 51 from on two point shots, but just 4 of 19 on threes
-Other than Rasheed Wallace, the four other Pistons' starters combined to shoot 31 of 55
-Wallace and Antonio McDyess combined for 23 rebounds
-After combining for 50 points Wednesday, Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis combined for just 23 points on 8 of 22 shooting
-Mickael Pietrus returned from his sprained wrist, but scored just 6 points in 30 minutes
-The Magic used a nine-man rotation, with Redick, Lue, and Richardson not seeing any action
The Magic travel to Philadelphia for a Saturday night game.
For the complete box score, click here
The Pistons made a major change in their starting lineup, putting Richard "Rip" Hamilton at shooting guard and Henry Stuckey at point guard, while Allen Iverson was inactive with a strained back. That made a huge difference for the Pistons, with Hamilton scoring 31 points as the Pistons overcame a 47-38 second quarter deficit and a 51-43 halftime deficit to the Magic by outscoring them 50-34 in the second half to beat the Magic yet again 93-85.
The Pistons led 71-65 after their big third quarter. The Magic were able to pull within one point on a couple of occasions in the fourth, but the Pistons held off the Magic and pulled away to win by eight points.
Magic leading scorers
Dwight Howard: 21 points (7 of 12 field goals), 13 rebounds
Rafer Alston: 14 points (6 of 11 field goals), 6 assists, 3 steals
Hedo Turkoglu: 13 points (4 of 12 field goals)
Detroit leading scorers
Richard Hamilton: 31 points (11 of 18 field goals), 6 assists
Rodney Stuckey: 22 points (9 of 15 field goals)
Tayshaun Prince: 17 points
Overall Game Statistics
FG%: DET 49.3% (36 of 73) ORL 47.1% (33 of 70)
3 PT FG%: DET 28.6% (2 of 7) ORL 21.1% (4 of 19)
FT%: DET 79.2% (19 of 24) ORL 68.2% (15 of 22)
REB: DET 38 (11 offensive) ORL 28 (7 offensive)
AST/TO: ORL 16/11 DET 15/15
BENCH: ORL 16 DET 9
Other game notes and stats:
-The Pistons outshot the Magic from the field, the three point line, the free throw line, and outrebounded the Magic by ten
-Hamilton and Stuckey combined for 53 points on 20 for 33 shooting
-The Pistons' starters outscored the Magic starters 84-69
-The Magic shot 29 of 51 from on two point shots, but just 4 of 19 on threes
-Other than Rasheed Wallace, the four other Pistons' starters combined to shoot 31 of 55
-Wallace and Antonio McDyess combined for 23 rebounds
-After combining for 50 points Wednesday, Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis combined for just 23 points on 8 of 22 shooting
-Mickael Pietrus returned from his sprained wrist, but scored just 6 points in 30 minutes
-The Magic used a nine-man rotation, with Redick, Lue, and Richardson not seeing any action
The Magic travel to Philadelphia for a Saturday night game.
For the complete box score, click here
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 12:15 AM
3 Comments:
At 4:09 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Quote from Magic coach Stan Van Gundy after the game from the Yahoo! game recap:
“One thing is you get tired of getting your (butt) kicked,” Van Gundy said. “It’s like the kid on the playground whose getting beat up all the time and he takes it and runs home. At some point, enough’s enough, and he stands up for himself.”
************************************
One of the most disheartening losses of the year for the Magic. They needed to make a little bit of a statement to the Pistons, and show them that they are indeed capable of beating them. Well, that didn't happen. As usual, when the Pistons play the Magic, the Pistons were the dominant team, even though they had lost their previous eight games.
Having Hamilton in the starting lineup made a big difference, and having Iverson inactive also made a big difference. The Pistons looked like the dominant Pistons of old against the Magic.
They elected to play Dwight Howard one on one, and cover the Magic's three point shooters. Dwight had his usual solid night, but a pitiful 4 of 19 display by the Magic shooting threes doomed any chance the Magic had of winning.
The Magic were ahead 51-43 at the half with only three first-half turnovers, and in decent shape, but the Pistons take control of the game right away to start the third.
I'm really disappointed that J.J. Redick did not see any action. SVG plays Pietrus over 30 minutes and he scores a mere 6 points on 2 of 6 shooting. The whole team stunk shooting threes; why not put in Redick for a while to see what he could do?! Maybe he hits a few threes to give the Magic a much better chance of pulling the game out late.
Other teams are going to start copying what the Pistons did... play Howard one-on-one, let him get his 20/10 or even more, but cover the Magic's three point shooters and not let them get open threes.
When the threes don't fall, and they're playing a good defensive team like the Pistons, it's going to be very hard for the Magic to win. It certainly doesn't help when the coach refuses to play the best pure shooter on the team, who tied a game last week with a last-second three.
Very disappointing that the Magic were so thoroughly outplayed and outcoached. They need to learn from this and move on.
At 9:55 AM,
Anonymous said…
WOW!!! mike you pretty much covered it, all around we stunk last night at home!!! I am going to have to be brutally honest with you guys here when it comes to the pistons and our magic.........................Yes, the pistons have had our numbers for years and from the look last night they still do but what worries me is that pistons are not the pistons of old and we made them look entirely too good last night!!!!!
Lets not forget that that they had lost not 1, not 2 but 8 straight before they came in OUR building and made us look like a college team. Mcdyess and Rwallace obviously did not play a great game, stuckey played huge at times making alston look powerless defensively and rip played his butt off scoring 31 in his first start in 16 games.
Now for our Magic DH did his thing adding yet another double-double to the repertoir, but we only got 48 points from our 4 other starters. Like mike mentioned Pietrus came in and had a horrible outing scoring only 6 points inalmost 31 minutes, not to mention he got lite up guarding hamilton coming off a pick, hopefullt he is ok.
An all around horrible game for the magic, and like i mentioned earlier i am going to be honest, this loss and the bulls lost on tuesday really worries me deeply because this past week we did not play our style of basketball even with RA at the point. Something's gotta give for our magic!!!
Looking forward, philly is coming off a good win against an ok knicks team, iguodala is finally starting to play like himself and philly is starting to come around again, this is another game that could be a preview of our first round in the uocoming playoffs.
At 11:01 AM,
Big Figure said…
This game just proved that the pistons own us. Like SVG,i'm tired of watching this team get punked by them.
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