2024-2025 NBA Play In Tournament: (8) Atlanta Hawks at (7) Orlando Magic - 7:30pm ET

[drsd]

Have to go to sleep. Good luck Orlando.

I hope you have sweet dreams of Garry Harris raining 3’s.

3/0/0 on 13 minutes played on 1-2 shooting. What a joke.

Got a solid 4 hours sleep; crashed when the game got to within 3: fear response??? Was not expecting to wake up to a big win.

GO MAGIC!

[drsd]

[drsd]

Box score thoughts:

Orlando won the FG% battle and won the game. And that's why they won.

Who'd thought that 28.2% three point shooting would be a dominant stat line? Well: Orlando forcing a 19% threeball from the Hawks, wow.

Digging a little deeper, yes the Magic at 48.4% shooting is better than the Hawks at 38.1% shooting; but impressively Orlando also took more FGs.
It is VERY hard to lose in the NBA when you take more shots AND make more shots. Literally, only a FT imbalance or eFG% could explain anything else than a win, and the Magic held their own to the Hawks at the charity stripe.

How did Orlando get more FGAs? Orlando dominated on rebounding differential (+12). Orlando snagged 42 friggen defensive rebounds; 54 total rebounds. YES!

Interesting side note: there was a tiny TO line from both teams and the cumulative TO level was only 15 (Orlando-8; Atlanta-7). I have never seen that cumulative TO level so low. Certainly it kind of has to be a play-in record.

[Optimus_Steel]

Rischaser is completely irrelevant. Invisible.

[pepe1991]

Rischaser is completely irrelevant. Invisible.

The thought process:
We will give up former lottery pick Hunter, who finally is panning into something, so we can give time to Risacher so he can develop and maybe become Deandre Hunter.

In mean time, in situation we don't hold own pick, we will start some guy named Gueye, who is almost 23 years old, shoots 43% FG, 26% for 3 and averages 6 ppg because that's worthy investment?

Hawks idiocracy.

I spent few days reading & Thinking why Hawks didn't trade Capela, why they traded Hunter & Bogdan for nothing, why they took & fired Hyland, why they didn't trade Nance and there is conclusion:

Their owner didn't want to spend single dollar over what he needed.
Salary floor will be $154M, Hawks have $143M in books, they will sign 2 rookies, pick Gueye's option and that's it.

They won't trade Trae because this limbo of being semi competitive cheap team is what is profitable for owner.

You can make legit case that Pelicans, Hawks, Hornets and Wizards should be added to handling of a league until owners sell. This is beyond laughable.

[basketballRob]

The Magic got an ABC game on Sunday. If they win a game or two, they'll get another one next weekend.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using RealGM mobile app

[AdamTheGreek]

Fun game. Sucks we didn’t have Paul but I don’t blame him for calling Panthers-Lightning. Should be back for the Celtics series.
Nice free shirt. It was not a sellout so a lot of folks grabbed extras after the final whistle. Crowd was overall good though.
3rd was a little nerve-racking, and then we got mad at the refs early in the fourth which fueled us the rest of the way.
They focused so much on Paolo and Franz that I’m glad our support guys had great games (except for KCP).

[JBSouthpaw]

Rischaser is completely irrelevant. Invisible.

The thought process:
We will give up former lottery pick Hunter, who finally is panning into something, so we can give time to Risacher so he can develop and maybe become Deandre Hunter.

In mean time, in situation we don't hold own pick, we will start some guy named Gueye, who is almost 23 years old, shoots 43% FG, 26% for 3 and averages 6 ppg because that's worthy investment?

Hawks idiocracy.

I spent few days reading & Thinking why Hawks didn't trade Capela, why they traded Hunter & Bogdan for nothing, why they took & fired Hyland, why they didn't trade Nance and there is conclusion:

Their owner didn't want to spend single dollar over what he needed.
Salary floor will be $154M, Hawks have $143M in books, they will sign 2 rookies, pick Gueye's option and that's it.

They won't trade Trae because this limbo of being semi competitive cheap team is what is profitable for owner.

You can make legit case that Pelicans, Hawks, Hornets and Wizards should be added to handling of a league until owners sell. This is beyond laughable.

Look at Risacher's splits, had a pretty good post All star run. Yes, in his 1st all-star game he got overwhelmed. He's going to be better than Hunter ever was, starting next year. BTW, He played Franz better than anyone I remember.

Gueye isn't even 22 1/2 yet, not "almost 23". He Did a good job on PB. That's a pretty good 2nd round find.

Hawks have a ton of players and $$ sitting on the bench.
They spent more money this year than Orlando.
Their core of Trae,Daniels,Risacher, Johnson and Okongwu is better than decent.

[JBSouthpaw]

Fun game. Sucks we didn’t have Paul but I don’t blame him for calling Panthers-Lightning. Should be back for the Celtics series.
Nice free shirt. It was not a sellout so a lot of folks grabbed extras after the final whistle. Crowd was overall good though.
3rd was a little nerve-racking, and then we got mad at the refs early in the fourth which fueled us the rest of the way.
They focused so much on Paolo and Franz that I’m glad our support guys had great games (except for KCP).

crowd was nice and loud on TV.
So nice to hear the dominant Magic crowd, we'll see how it is with the home games against BOS.

[Blue_and_Whte]

Someone probably already posted this but if not this is from Trae:

“They're a physical team. I've had two teammates hurt this year in one game against them," Young said. "I'm not going to call them dirty players or anything like that. I think they have a lot of talented players. But a lot of the plays and the moments ... it's not even necessarily basketball at that point. I think that's where the frustration got."

Perfect.

[Blue_and_Whte]

Boston is obviously gonna bomb away from 3 against the magic but all the magic have to do is play hard. Make it a serious even if only goes 5 make it a tough hard fought 5 games. All I ask for is effort and make some damn open shoots.

I’m not concerned about effort…it’s can we put the ball in the hoop and which versions of Cole, Wendell, KCP, and Black are we going to get.

[JoshuaPotter]

It's not play-in KCP, it's playoff KCP

Yeah, he must have had first time jitters or something. Isn't it his first playin?

Unless he totally catches fire. I unequivocally hate this signing. Possibly the worst contract on the entire team and that's saying something.

[3ddman23]

The Magic got an ABC game on Sunday. If they win a game or two, they'll get another one next weekend.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using RealGM mobile app

That's the benefit of playing Boston in a 7 game series. All the games will be nationally televised. No NBA tv games. But can the magic remotely show up on the big stage? The Boston fans will be at kia center in spades. Can the magic control that away crowd when Boston goes on there runs? We'll see.

[sChOlaRlY_Magi]

Where are all the people who saw Trae Young get so frustrated that he intentionally technical fouled his way out of the game?! Is that earlier in the thread?


That was a thing of beauty to see in my eyes.

Also, Shaq, my guy.... Where was your hawk at halftime?...

[richi_v25]

Where are all the people who saw Trae Young get so frustrated that he intentionally technical fouled his way out of the game?! Is that earlier in the thread?


That was a thing of beauty to see in my eyes.

Also, Shaq, my guy.... Where was your hawk at halftime?...

It was dead in a shoe box, he even tried to bring it back to life but it was too far gone lol.

[drsd]

I am so very happy. Please respond by defining my happiness level.

[eyriq]

If the Magic win it will likely be because their defense neutralized Boston's high powered offense, Paolo and Franz provided consistent scoring, ball movement generated open shots that shooters knocked down, and injury concerns got the worst of Boston.

[pepe1991]

Rischaser is completely irrelevant. Invisible.

The thought process:
We will give up former lottery pick Hunter, who finally is panning into something, so we can give time to Risacher so he can develop and maybe become Deandre Hunter.

In mean time, in situation we don't hold own pick, we will start some guy named Gueye, who is almost 23 years old, shoots 43% FG, 26% for 3 and averages 6 ppg because that's worthy investment?

Hawks idiocracy.

I spent few days reading & Thinking why Hawks didn't trade Capela, why they traded Hunter & Bogdan for nothing, why they took & fired Hyland, why they didn't trade Nance and there is conclusion:

Their owner didn't want to spend single dollar over what he needed.
Salary floor will be $154M, Hawks have $143M in books, they will sign 2 rookies, pick Gueye's option and that's it.

They won't trade Trae because this limbo of being semi competitive cheap team is what is profitable for owner.

You can make legit case that Pelicans, Hawks, Hornets and Wizards should be added to handling of a league until owners sell. This is beyond laughable.

Look at Risacher's splits, had a pretty good post All star run. Yes, in his 1st all-star game he got overwhelmed. He's going to be better than Hunter ever was, starting next year. BTW, He played Franz better than anyone I remember.

Gueye isn't even 22 1/2 yet, not "almost 23". He Did a good job on PB. That's a pretty good 2nd round find.

Hawks have a ton of players and $$ sitting on the bench.
They spent more money this year than Orlando.
Their core of Trae,Daniels,Risacher, Johnson and Okongwu is better than decent.

RIsacher is fundamentally sound player on both ends, that's why he went 1# overall.
That said, i don't see as much potential in him that you see. I see role player that will force fed into bigger role that he doesn't feel comfortable having, due his limitatinos as ball handler, decision maker etc. Basically less hyped Wiggins, probably with better 3 ball, but with same issues as passer/rebounder to be serious offensive weapon ( as top 2 player on a team, and that's what you expect from 1st overall pick and that's what Hawks need ).

For example, in past 9 games, he has 5 assists total on 25 rebounds in near in 200 min played.

And Hunter didn't block him, Hunter is PF.

Gueye will be 23 on start of next season. He lacks basketball awarness, has nice defensive instics but has no clue how to play offense. And given his age, there is zero chance that he will ever learn it. Guy is 6'10- 6'11, he should have been C, but he can't play neither PF nor C well.

Okonogwu is fine.


But as a team they simply don't work.
They are 22# defense, 17# offense. Post all star their offense jumped to 6th, but their defense is still top 10 worst. You saw how "6th best offense" looks last night. Trae flopping and others being incapable of doing anything on their own, in same time as long as Trae is there, they will never be good defenders.

I said it back in 2021 when they were hot team that they will never go anywhere. 4 years later, they are still nothing but treadmill team.
It's Trae Young effect. He isn't good enough to be your 1# option, and if you take ball out of his hands he has no purpose. And guy by himself trashes your defense.
Because of him, Hawks keep stock piling those defenders without offense, and good defensive teams still can guard Young (us , last night) and force others to do anything.
Final result: Risacher 2-10 FG, Mann 0-5, Levert 3-11 , Daniels 3-8 . Gueye 5-5 all shots made inside 3 feet, Okongwu 1 shot made outside paint.

This isn't anything new:

2023-24 - 36-46 record , lost by 15 in playin vs Bulls as 10th seed. Scored 116 points, allowed 131. Couldn't defend.
2022-23 - went all in on Murray - 41-41 record, lost in first round
2021-22 - 43-39- got trashed by Heat in first round

2020-21 -41-31- went to ECF.

This is their 4th year in a row where they will lose in first round IF they even get to playoffs.


Daniels & Trae are FAs soon, so their whole salary cap will be gone on core that is good enough to beat bad teams on east, still too bad to compete against good teams.

[Skybox]

Where are all the people who saw Trae Young get so frustrated that he intentionally technical fouled his way out of the game?! Is that earlier in the thread?


That was a thing of beauty to see in my eyes.

Also, Shaq, my guy.... Where was your hawk at halftime?...

Speaking of Shaq and his gang...I guess I haven't watched a network game in a while but those guys went from being the runaway best NBA broadcast group to a little too sloppy and full of themselves, even Ernie - whose role has always been to keep them on the rails.

During the pregame show, they were all talking at once, cracking themselves up and, more often than not, just cracking irrelevant jokes like a bunch of teens discovering pot for the first time. Barkley, the first great irreverent NBA broadcaster, was making the best effort to stay on topic. Shaq sounded almost drunk or as if he had a mouth full of marbles, I could hardly understand his mumbles. I love those guys but it seemed to be a strikingly bad day for them.

I didn't hate it, but it was definitely sloppy and kind of obnoxious compared to their historically elite work.

[OnlyFranz22]

Quentin Richardson on Pat McAfee Show today talking about we we we when talking about the Magic. Loved hearing it.

Didnt realize he was still that connected to the organization