Game night preview
ORLANDO MAGIC vs. MILWAUKEE BUCKS
Wednesday, Dec. 30. 7:00 p.m.
Amway Arena
Orlando, FL
The Orlando Magic look (22-8, 12-3 home) to bounce back from their Christmas Day loss to the Celtics when they host the Milwaukee Bucks (12-17, 3-10 road) at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The Magic
are 1-0 against the Bucks this season, after they pulled out a 100-98 victory in Milwaukee on November 28. In that contest, Orlando overcame a 17-point deficit, which was capped off by a Rashard Lewis game-winning jumper with 44.7 seconds left. The Magic will attempt to start out with more energy and intensity in this game, because they’re well aware of the challenges that the Bucks present. “That team plays very, very hard and with unbelievable energy,” Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy said after their first meeting. Milwaukee has struggled of late, despite the returns of Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut – two players that missed the last contest against Orlando – from injury. The Bucks have won just one out of their last seven games, a fact that’s not lost on Head Coach Scott Skiles. “We have defensive issues, no question,” Skiles said. “We’re trying to find enough guys that will commit to that and we’ll keep searching until we find it.”Here is the complete game preview from Yahoo! Sports.
The Magic are 11 point favorites.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 5:26 AM
4 Comments:
At 5:37 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Even with their talent, Bucks have really struggled lately, so much so that Andrew Bogut and Michael Redd, two of their best players, were benched last game for the second half by coach Scott Skiles, who was unhappy with their play.
It'll be interesting to see how the Magic play after a 5 day interval between games, and how Dwight Howard and the rest of the team does offensively after really being stifled by Boston.
The Magic have played well defensively this homestand. This is the last game of the 5 game homestand, so hopefully the Magic won't have any kind of a letdown and they'll keep the Bucks struggling.
Fun fact: Today is the 19 year anniversary of then Magic PG Scott Skiles breaking the NBA record for most assists in an NBA game with 30 against the Nuggets. That record still stands today.
At 1:33 PM,
Big Figure said…
The magic need to jump on the bucks from the start. Outside of their PG,none of their players are that good to be honest. Watching jameer over the years we have gotten spoiled with his big shot & scoring abilities,but i have to ask "were those games close because of his own lack of leadership from the PG position"?. Leadership from a PG is critical,can you imagine if we swapped PG's with boston? Sure rondo doesnt shoot it as well,but would he need to playing with VC,MP,RL,DH and our bench? And when you leave him open he steps in and shoots floaters instead of launching three's that he know's he doesnt shoot a good percentage on. Thats high basketball I.Q. and i want to start seeing some of that in jameer. I would be happy with 6 or 7 assists from jameer a game,he doesnt even have to be a double figure assist guy because dwight should be handing out some of those too. Rafer and more recently jwill both played the spot the way it should be played,now they both have other things that went south on them (Rafer's shooting & jwill's defense)but for the most part their on the floor leadership was really felt and is now missed. Jameer ill be watching!
At 1:50 PM,
Big Figure said…
I hate the fact that adjustments will be made against the bucks and we'll probably win because of them,but when we play the celts or cavs we go back to our old "shoot a ton & turnover ways". 18 turns by jameer,VC,RL and dwight are way to many and it seems like team turns go down when you have solid PG play.
At 6:39 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Big Figure, Jameer just got back from his injury, so it's going to take a while for him to get back up to par like we're used to seeing him play. The team chemistry with the starters should be better the more games that Jameer plays.
I don't expect Jameer to play as spectacularly as he did last season when he was voted to the All-Star team, but like Big Figure mentioned, if he could get his assists to between 6-7 per game, that would really help.
Patience is the key here; after all, the season is just a little over 1/3 over.
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