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.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Magic pull off upset over Bulls

Despite committing 26 TOs, the Magic (28-30, 10-18 road), playing their 3rd game in 4 days, parlayed a huge rebounding advantage and excellent FT shooting into a 94-87 victory over CHI (32-27, 22-8 home), which was playing its 4th game in 5 days and missing top reserve Andres Nocioni.

The Magic were led by DHoward with 21 pts (7 of 10 FGs), 16 rebs. Howard also committed 11 TOs. DMilicic was huge with 14 pts, 16 rebs, 5 blocks; JNelson 18 pts, 4 asts; and GHIll 15 pts. TAriza led the reserves with 7 pts. KDooling chipped in with 5 pts, 4 rebs, 2 steals, and a block. CHI was led by the hot outside shooting of Ben Gordon with 32 pts; Luol Deng with 23 pts, and Kirk Hinrich was held to just 10 pts. Malik Allen and Chris Duhon each scored 6 pts off the bench.

CHI (32 of 81, 39.5%) outscored the Magic (32 of 73, 43.8%) from the field 71-67. CHI hit on 7 of 18 3 pt FGs, while the Magic were 3 of 9. The Magic (27 of 33) had a big advantage at the FT line over CHI (16 of 20). The Magic dominated the boards 49-31, including 19-12 on the offensive boards. The Magic had 22 asts to go along with their 26 TOs, while CHI had a 25/17 AST/TO ratio. The Bulls reserves edged the Magic reserves 18-17.

The Magic now move 1/2 game ahead of NJ for the 8th spot, and remain 2 games ahead of NY. The Magic get a much-needed day off TUE, then head West to face DEN.

posted by Mike from Illinois @ 12:50 AM  

9 Comments:

  • At 1:27 AM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    A much-needed road win against a tough opponent (the Bulls had only lost twice all season at home to an Eastern Conference oponent)... hopefully the Magic can use this as a springboard for more victories.

    How about the two-headed monster in DHoward and DMilicic... a combined 35 pts, 32 rebs, and 7 blocks. We won't talk about Dwight's 11 TOs though.

    I have to give props to KDooling, who had an outstanding 4th quarter defensively. JNelson was a factor also, and made several nice plays. HTurkoglu did have 7 asts, even though he scored just 9 pts with 5 TOs.

    The Magic would have won this game by even more if it wasn't for the shooting from Ben Gordon and Luol Deng in the 3rd quarter and some of the 4th quarter. Gordon and Deng combined for 30 of the Bulls 42 second-half pts. Of course, the 26 TOs helped keep the Bulls in it, too.

    The cable station that televised the game here in the Chicago area ran a poll after the game asking viewers who the best young big man in the NBA is... DHoward, Amare Stoudamire, Eddy Curry, or Chris Bosh. Howard got over 43% of the vote and Stoudamire finished second with 17%. Dwight impressed the Chicago viewers!

    The Bulls announcers were wondering how come the Magic had fallen so far and so fast... they really like the Magic's talent, and think the Magic can give a higher-seeded team a rough time if they make the playoffs.

     

  • At 8:27 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    This was a fantastic win for the Magic. Credit to Hill who stayed with the team's strength except for deviation in parts of the 4th quarter, but corrected it at about two minutes and change left by putting Darko in. Matt Gouckas was talking about Darko guarding Deng now but what about anybody guarding Darko on the other end, who had a continuous feast on both ends of the floor. This was a glimpse of the future as far as Double Ds playing together, and showed that we were right all along that Darko needed playing time, and subsequently, a boost of confidence. What was the deal with Keith and J.J.? They were both dressed up but did not get a single minute on a back-to-back. I thought the way Hedo played, and the offense looking bogged down at times, they should have been getting some playing time.

     

  • At 11:04 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    I too think this was a good victory for a young basketball team,"BUT" if you guys remember correctly we went into chicago late last year and beat them the same way pretty much,some teams just have their nemesis,and before the game matt and i pointed it out that the magic would win if they attack the basket,they did,they won,so i'm not so surprise by the outcome and dont really view this victory as an upset,great game to watch though.The good:Dwight and darko obviously,like matt said,this just confirms hill as a moron for wasting darko's talents for 45 games.The bad: In 35 minutes hedo goes 2-8 with 9 points,if he didnt have those seven assists he would have been worthless offensively last night.Carlos and keyon go 1-9 combined,calos is still playing defense with his hands and gets alot of hand-check fouls called on him,keyon at least played solid defense with his horrible shooting performance.Games like this remind me of why i hate bsh,he wasted half a season for our team,we can only imagine where we would be in the standings if darko had started from day one like we all suggested.

     

  • At 11:04 AM, Blogger Big Figure said…

    This comment has been removed by the author.

     

  • At 2:55 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    Matt, I'm glad you pointed out Darko sitting all but what, 3 minutes of the 4th quarter?

    Guokas said it was because of the match ups, yet, Darko checked in, and caused problems for Deng on both ends.

    A couple things I hate about B Hill:

    One, he never rides the hot player. We’ve seen this many times before. Last night, in the 1st quarter, Darko was on fire. Yet, Darko was also the 1st player subbed out. Sometimes I wonder if B Hill "rewards" guys with a rest on the bench when he sees they're busting ass on the court?

    Two, B Hill doesn't force the issue. The Bulls went small, so Hill didn't want to put Darko out there in the 4th quarter. Well, Darko was having an awesome game. How about you put him out there, let him abuse the Bulls smaller lineup with Dwight, and force the Bulls to change up?

    Luckily, with 3 minutes to go, B Hill realized that not having Darko on the court might cost us the game.

    Grant Hill chasing 2 guards off of screens, umm, right... If he’s going to play, play him at the 3 spot.

    Dooling played decent defense. Active players always play better with other active guys. When you have Dooling, Ariza, and Outlaw out there running around like crazy, things can happen. When Dooling is doing it by himself, nothing happens. He's still crippling on the offensive end. And the Bulls still scored a ton of points from the position he was defending.

    Hedo IS NOT a starter. He's had all year to prove it, and all he's proven is that he'll be a great bench player.

    Overall, I was very happy with the win. The Bulls played tough. The refs let the Bull POUND on our guys down low, yet we fought and still came out with a victory. It's just a shame that we really do have some solid players on this roster, and a clueless coach in charge of them.

     

  • At 7:15 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    Not that I volunteer defending Hill, but may be Darko was pulled out in the first quarter because the frantic pace had him winded. After all Darko is not used to playing starters' minutes thanks to Hill.

     

  • At 7:54 PM, Blogger Mike from Illinois said…

    Big Figure is correct when he said that late last season, the Magic went into CHI and beat the Bulls. However, a few weeks later, the final week of the season, the Bulls came into ORL and beat them in OT to kill the Magic's playoff chances. The Bulls come into ORL next week, so hopefully the Magic can complete the season sweep.

    I agree that BHill should try to find at least some playing time for both KBogans and J.J Redick, and was surprised that Bogans especially didn't see any action.

     

  • At 11:40 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    Smith had recently shrugged off any queries about J.J. Redick's playing time. Here is the quote from Sentinel:

    ["J.J. is the least of my worries right now,'' Smith said before the Magic played the Bulls in Chicago. "He's going to be a player, but I'm worried more about our confidence overall. When you're not winning, you can see it in their [players] eyes. When something starts to go wrong, you can see them thinking 'Oh, oh, here we go,' " Smith said.].

    What annoys me with him and Hill is the fact that they treat the Magic fans as though we are all kindergarten kids, and do not understand that the two issues (winning and J.J.'s playing) are connected.

    There is an old Japanese say that "Stupid is he who thinks all others are stupid.".

     

  • At 12:05 PM, Blogger OVERWADED said…

    The same thing annoys me about Smith and Hill. They both often think they're saying something "profound", or answering questions only they'd understand, because they're in the position they're in. When they're asked to explain it, they either don't, or do so in a way that sounds like they’re explaining it to a bunch of kids, yet with a "know it all arrogance" behind their words.

    Those were always the worst kind of teachers.

    In my opinion, seeing that their answer to everything always ends with the same thing: "the ultimate goal is to win a championship"; I think they're both reading from the same book, NBA for Dummies.

     

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