Game night preview
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The Magic’s (11-4) endurance will be challenged on Thanksgiving, when they travel to Atlanta (11-3) to battle the Hawks at 8 p.m.
ET Thursday. The second game of Orlando’s back-to-back is in the middle of a grueling stretch that has the Magic playing in four cities in five nights. “It’s going to be a real tough holiday weekend for us,” Magic shooting guard J.J. Redick said. “We have four games in five nights and it’s four cities in five nights. So it will be a challenge for us.” The Hawks have won seven of their past eight games and are currently 1/2 game ahead of the Magic atop the Southeast division. In order for Orlando to claim division supremacy, they’ll need to find a way to slow down Atlanta guards Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford, who are currently averaging a combined 39.3 points per game. While initially displeased with his team’s defensive start to the season, Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy is beginning to see improvement. “I think we’re really battling hard defensively,” Van Gundy said. “I think that has really improved over the last two games. We went into Boston, they were No. 1 in the league in field goal percentage and we held them in the low 30s. We come in (Sunday) and this team is averaging 107 a game and (we) give them 28 in the first quarter, and then still end up holding them below 100. That to me is what I like. I see us fighting harder and making a better effort defensively. “
Here is the complete preview from Yahoo! Sports.
The Hawks are 3 point favorites.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 5:44 PM
4 Comments:
At 6:09 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Hopefully, D12 gets more touches tonight to get him more involved in the game.
I agree with you guys when you said Van Gundy needs to find some time for Brendan Bass to play; he'll probably see some action tonight I would think.
A win over the Hawks would take the sting away from last night's collapse; let's go Magic!
At 6:20 PM,
Big Figure said…
For what-ever reason smaller centers give dwight problems so the match-up with horford is critical. Its also hard to establish dwight if he's on the bench in foul trouble,he must be patient with his moves on the block and dont let opposing players get him frustrated. To me dwight seems to let other players out think and frustate him on toooo many occasion's. Dwight's reaction to anything negative in a game is to automatically get frustrated,he's wearing his frustration on his face and to me thats a sign of immaturity. He should be thinking his way through games and making note of anything a player does to him. KG used the "pull the chair defense" on dwight during the game with the celtics,that was a smart move by a savy veteran. But dwight got madd and went down the floor with the wrong mindset(as if to say KG did something wrong),right then dwight should have noted the defense in his mind and made the proper adjustment for the next time down the floor. But it doesnt seem like dwight's handling things that way,his frustration leads to more bad than good and this year it seems like the bad is foul trouble. I think SVG can help him with offensive strategy,any time dwight posts im almost looking for an offensive foul. So get him the ball on the move more. Post him in front of the basket more instead of on the wing where guys can strip his dribble. Do something SVG c'mon. Im tired of watching the same ole shit.
At 7:11 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
By the way, hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving!
At 7:28 PM,
Big Figure said…
Yea i second that. HAPPY EAT EVERYTHING IN SIGHT DAY!!! LOL.
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