A Play-Offs Forecast
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As the Orlando Magic is peaking towards the end of the regular season, let’s forecast potential match ups in the play-offs:
1. The four top teams in the East are established with CLE and Magic as first and second seeds while BOS and ATL fighting it out for the third and fourth spots. Magic may not be able to catch CLE while neither BOS nor ATL could catch Magic. Magic is currently 4 games ahead of both BOS and ATL, and since Magic has the tiebreaker over both of those teams, Magic has to lose 9 games while BOS and/or ATL winning all their remaining games to be able to pass the Magic for the second spot. There are 17 matches left for Magic, and in my view, the worse the Magic could do is 12-5. This means that Magic will have the home-court advantage for the first and second rounds of the play-offs.
2. The bottom four spots of the East is still between five teams; MIL, TOR, MIA, CHA and CHI. I think that either CHA or MIA would be the potential candidate to play with the Magic in the first round, but none could take more than one game from the Magic.
3. Magic will face either BOS or ATL in the second round (probably ATL because BOS is slumping, and ATL may end up as the third seed). Magic will probably win in 6 games.
4. Get ready for an East finals rematch of last year with CLE.
5. Forecasting the team coming from the West is not easy. While the world champions could never be underestimated, DAL is meshing together with the new roster. DAL probably would have a hard time in the second round with DEN, and if they come through watch out. My prediction is that Lakers would still come through. If Magic makes it to the finals, the way the team is peaking, it would be a lot different compared to last year. Magic’s front-court is deeper and stronger, and at PG Jameer is finding his all-star form, while Fisher is older and slower. In the two games played with Lakers, Magic has shown that they can match up at PF and SF positions, should have considerable edge at C and slight/moderate edge at PG. The SG edge is the only spot that goes to LA. This scenario provides for an exciting finals which, if happens to be the case, I predict that Magic will win the series in 6 games.
As the Orlando Magic is peaking towards the end of the regular season, let’s forecast potential match ups in the play-offs:
1. The four top teams in the East are established with CLE and Magic as first and second seeds while BOS and ATL fighting it out for the third and fourth spots. Magic may not be able to catch CLE while neither BOS nor ATL could catch Magic. Magic is currently 4 games ahead of both BOS and ATL, and since Magic has the tiebreaker over both of those teams, Magic has to lose 9 games while BOS and/or ATL winning all their remaining games to be able to pass the Magic for the second spot. There are 17 matches left for Magic, and in my view, the worse the Magic could do is 12-5. This means that Magic will have the home-court advantage for the first and second rounds of the play-offs.
2. The bottom four spots of the East is still between five teams; MIL, TOR, MIA, CHA and CHI. I think that either CHA or MIA would be the potential candidate to play with the Magic in the first round, but none could take more than one game from the Magic.
3. Magic will face either BOS or ATL in the second round (probably ATL because BOS is slumping, and ATL may end up as the third seed). Magic will probably win in 6 games.
4. Get ready for an East finals rematch of last year with CLE.
5. Forecasting the team coming from the West is not easy. While the world champions could never be underestimated, DAL is meshing together with the new roster. DAL probably would have a hard time in the second round with DEN, and if they come through watch out. My prediction is that Lakers would still come through. If Magic makes it to the finals, the way the team is peaking, it would be a lot different compared to last year. Magic’s front-court is deeper and stronger, and at PG Jameer is finding his all-star form, while Fisher is older and slower. In the two games played with Lakers, Magic has shown that they can match up at PF and SF positions, should have considerable edge at C and slight/moderate edge at PG. The SG edge is the only spot that goes to LA. This scenario provides for an exciting finals which, if happens to be the case, I predict that Magic will win the series in 6 games.
posted by Matt @ 6:59 PM
3 Comments:
At 7:23 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
The Magic may clinch the second seed with several games still having to be played, with no chance of catching Cleveland for the top seed. If that's the case, the Magic may rest several of their starters, or at least limit their minutes in the remaining games.
The same scenario happened last season, with the Magic clinching the third seed going into the last two weeks of the season, and they had no chance of moving up. As a result, they rested several players and lost the majority of their games the final two weeks. They started slow against Philly in the playoffs, falling behind 2 games to 1, then came on like gangbusters.
The important thing is the Magic are peaking at the right time, and playing their best basketball of the season now.
Three months from now, I'll look back at this post and see how Matt's predictions turned out.
At 12:15 AM,
Anonymous said…
Dallas Fan here
Posted this summer about Bass/Gortat. Saw the nice note when you stopped anonymous posting about me, thanks.
So what do you think about Bass? Has he battled nagging injuries? For much of the season he got no or few minutes but is now getting some.
Magic are looking good. Deep. Serious contenders. I think it Clev and Orlando in the East.
Mavs still have some holes, but will match up much better with Denver. In the past we had two non scorers on the court - Kidd and Dampier. Haywood can score and Kidd now can score (3s). Big diff and will likely get us past Denver. Lakers, not so sure, but it would be close.
Our trade with Wash was great (Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood for Josh Howard. Woohoo!) We are injured out the wazzoo right now, still winning but falling into some old bad habits. May have to remesh as players come back. Still a lot to prove. Our schedule has been favorable of late and is the easiest of the West contenders the rest of the season.
Sorry if this is a thread hijack.
At 6:06 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Nice to hear from you again, Dallas Fan.
About Brandon Bass... he has been healthy for the season, but he had a real hard time breaking into the rotation for some time because Ryan Anderson at PF was playing well and has three point range, which Bass doesn't. Anderson had been slumping badly though for several weeks through mid February with his shooting, so Van Gundy inserted Bass into the rotation ahead of Anderson just after the All-Star break.
The last 10 games Bass has played, the Magic have won all 10 of those games, while Bass has improved considerably with the more consistent playing time.
Your Mavericks are really playing well, especially since the trade, and have a good chance of extending their 13 game winning streak. They have as good a chance of anyone of coming out of the tough West.
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