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, January 09, 2010

Game review: Wizards (12-22) 104, Magic (24-12) 97


The Magic were trying to put a stop to their to their recent bad stretch of losses, and it looked like they would do so when they led by 10 points over a reeling Washington team, without suspended Gilbert Arenas, with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game. However, the Magic totally unraveled offensively and defensively from that point on, as they lost their 4th game in a row and 5th game of their last 7. SG Vince Carter sprained his left shoulder in the second quarter and did not return.

In a reversal of their recent losses, the Magic played well in the first half, and played awful in the second half. The game was tied at 29 after one quarter and the Magic led by as much as 11 points in the second quarter and settled for a 56-51 lead at the half. The Wizards came back to tie the game in the third quarter at 65, but the Magic went on a 12-1 run to take back control of the game 77-65, and led 77-71 after three quarters. The Magic scored the first 4 points of the fourth quarter before their stunning collapse, as the Wizards went on a 23-5 run over the next 7:21 to take command of the game 94-86 with 3:18 remaining. The Magic could get no closer than 96-91 on their way to the loss.

Magic leading scorers

Dwight Howard: 23 points (9 of 13 FGs, 5 of 12 FTs), 11 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 turnovers
Mickael Pietrus (bench): 14 points (6 of 14 FGs), 5 rebounds
J.J. Redick (bench): 14 points (4 of 12 FGs, 3 of 8 3 PT FGs)
Jason Williams (bench): 10 points (4 of 8 FGs)

Overall Game Statistics

FG%: ORL 42.9% (36 of 84) WAS 42.5% (34 of 80)
3 PT FG%: WAS 40% (6 of 15) ORL 25.9% (7 of 27)
FT%: WAS 88.2% (30 of 34) ORL 60% (18 of 30)
REB: WAS 55 (15 offensive) ORL 41 (13 offensive)
AST/TO: WAS 17/16 ORL 15/12
BENCH: ORL 45 WAS 9

Other game notes and stats:

-Three Wizards scored 20 or more points, led by Antawn Jamison with 28 points, 11 rebounds; Caron Butler with 23 points, and Randy Foye with 20 points
-Wizards' C Brendan Haywood added a double/double with 18 points, 15 rebounds
-The Wizards' starters outscored the Magic starters 95-52
-Jameer Nelson, Carter, Rashard Lewis, and Matt Barnes, 4 of the Magic starters, combined for 29 points
-Nelson and Lewis combined to shoot 6 of 24 for 14 points
-The Magic starters combined to shoot 1 of 10 on three pointers
-For a 9 1/2 minute stretch in the fourth quarter, the Magic shot just 3 of 17 from the field during that span
-The Magic were outrebounded 20-11 in the fourth quarter
-Nelson and Lewis combined to shoot 6 of 24 from the field for 14 points
-The Magic bench shot 11 for 18 for 30 points in the first half, but just 6 for 21 for 15 second half points
-Nelson led the Magic with 5 assists
-Former Magic draftee Mike Miller and Randy Foye each had 6 assists for the Wizards

Here is the complete recap and box score from Yahoo! Sports.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 12:22 AM  

4 Comments:

  • At 11:47 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    I am not going to spend much time on this, and honesty I don't like this 'too humble' of a version of Coach Van Gundy. Having that said, I believe that he has a huge role in turning this situation around. As mentioned in my earlier posts, he needs to take a leadership role dissecting the problems in a concise manner, and convey them to players on one-on-one basis.

    As for the line-ups, Barnes insertion has not produced results, and although the number of games played with him in the starting line-up constitute too small of a sample to draw any statistical inference, I want to qualitatively argue against it for three reasons: 1) his shooting and defensive prowess vs. MP. Last night he had many 3-point opportunities which he either did not take or missed badly; 2) MP's enthusiasm has gone down as a bench player, leading to the sum production of the two players being down; and 3) Superior teams build points difference early on to discourage the inferior opponents, not trying to catch up as has been the case with the Magic recently. MP's shooting prowess would allow for that more than Barnes'. While on this subject, Ryan's recent relegation fully in favor of Brandon is not helpful neither. While some match-ups may require frequent use of Brandon, Ryan's DNP/CD is unwarranted.

    Finally, Magic is down mentally more than anything else. It is Coach Van Gundy's job to remedy the lack of confidence by taking the role of leader which he is.

     

  • At 12:04 PM, Anonymous Andy said…

    I am very concerned about the Magic. They should have built a chemistry that works before now. Last night's loss to a shell of a team was embarassing. It is as if every team knows if you run hard at the Magic they will fall apart. Too many one on ones (JN, MB), too few opportunities for RL, some big men did not hustle enough (DH). Right now what the Magic are best at is arguing about call and stupid technicals.

    I loved MP off the bench last season, he broought energy, shooting and athleticism which are classis bench contributions. I have not seen much of that this year and believe he'd make a better starter than reserve in place of MB.

    I don't understand the use of BB over RA. Clearly they are not the same type of player and there may be times one has a better match-up than the other but for RA to sit full time doesn't make sense, he is too good!

    The coach still refuses to call time out to stop a run (even though the Magic are finally a good team coming out of time outs). I liked his decision to put the starters back in the game for the last half of the 2nd quarter, something missing for the last few games.

    We'll see where they go from here; down the tubes or back to the Finals!

     

  • At 1:32 PM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    Yea right now my problems are with SVG. (1)As mentioned,how can he continue to sit RA? And why does he choose to play one or the other as if to say they cant play in the same game? Its completely stupid. If one isnt performing well enough try the other,this isnt rocket science. He seems to make up his mind before the game which he's gonna play and then sticks with it no matter what happens in the game. Last night down the stretch without VC it would have been perfect to slide rashard over to the three and get RA into the game. (2)He played Jwill way to long in the fourth quarter. Jameer wasnt brought back into the game until the 5 minute mark left in the fourth quarter,i mean how is he supposed to lead if he's not out there. About the 8 minute mark i can remember thinking where's jameer? (3) Another case of SVG just sitting around and watching the team take bad shots down the stretch. If you look at all the shots in the fourth quarter,most of them came from outside of the framework of our offense. Whole bunch of jumpers to be exact when getting to the rim is how we built our ten point lead. Also i have to point out that MB while not being as good a shooter as MP brings something to the table that our starting line-up truely needs and thats a defensive presence on the boards. He helps dwight and our team more than can be calculated into a stat,as long as he's grabbing boards i'll be fine with his offense not being great. He does get steals for lay-ups which make us so much better defensively,MP just doesnt do anything physical so thats why he's going to remain on the bench. MP helps us off the bench because he can score,MB on the bench would hurt our bench scoring production. Right now the problems are with jameer,VC and rashard and when we can get these guys going our offense will be fine.

     

  • At 2:08 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    I don't know what's more frustrating... having the Magic build a lead only to collapse in the fourth quarter, as what happened against Washington, or playing poorly for 3 quarters then attempting a furious comeback in the 4th quarter, only to fall short, as has been the case before Washington.

    You guys identified many of the Magic problems in your comments; let me just add that I too am wondering why Coach Van Gundy hasn't played Anderson the last two games. It doesn't make any sense.

    The inconsistency of the Magic's top players (Howard, Lewis, Carter, and Nelson) is really hurting the team right now. It looked like VC was snapping out of his slump last night, as he had 8 points on just 2 shots and was doing a good job of getting to the FT line before he had to depart.

    On a final note, all 3 top East teams lost Friday, and the Lakers lost also. Boston, Orlando, and the Lakers have had a poor week, which just goes to show every team goes through a bad time during the course of a season.

     

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