RealGM

I saw some gritiness and toughness when the threes werent falling but the offensive rebounding and man on man defense needs to get a little better in my opinion

take care of the boards and the ball.... that is all

Defense wins Championships!!!

I think we held the Raptors under 100 points every game except the 1 loss. We need to definately keep up the defense to win every game!

GO MAGIC!!!

Defense, rebounding, turnovers, shooting, ball movement, rotations, etc.

LOL.

Another thing.. letting our good SHOOTERS shoot more.. less shots for Evans/Dooling/Bogans more for Lewis and Turk.. not if they're open I just hate when they jack up shots for no reason

Soul wrote:Another thing.. letting our good SHOOTERS shoot more.. less shots for Evans/Dooling/Bogans more for Lewis and Turk.. not if they're open I just hate when they jack up shots for no reason

Bingo !

I was going to say we need to improve, scratch that, be consistent with our ball movement. We're playing good D, so I'm not too worried about that. Shard, Hedo and Nelson are doing great defensively, Howard is dominant so we're good defensively.

Our problem lies within our guards, excluding Nelson. Evans slightly, Bogans and Dooling are the biggest reason we are so inconsistent on O.They don't like to make the extra pass let alone make a pass, which stagnates our O and when that happens we just cave in.We're extremely good when we keep the ball movement flowing, Dwight passes well from double teams lately, Shard also passes the ball to an open guy, Nelson does this great as does Hedo. But it's those other guards that mess up that flow. It baffles me that scrubs like Dooling and Bogans take more forced shots then Hedo or Shard, no matter their FG%.

I can't stress enough how important it is for us to keep the ball moving, making the extra pass. Everything clicks when we keep that intensity and mindset. But whenever our O stagnates, Dooling and Bogans don't pass start up jacking shots, that's when we really fail.

So I hope in the next round we'll get to see MORE Nelson less Dooling and MORE Evans less Bogans. Also, Stan needs to play his big 3 and Nelson as much as possible, sometimes he takes 2 or 3 of those 4 stars out and either Hedo or Shard has to play with Dooling, Bogans, Gortat. And Stan lets that 5 play for at least 5 minutes, which really is dangerous cause with that 5 we have no structure.

Lewis and Turk had opportunities to take all the shots they could want. They just started driving more because they went cold, which is exactly what you want from them under those circumstances.

Hopefully, the overall shooting will take care of itself, and I was actually very pleased with our rebounding at both ends. Of greater concern for me are Dooling's PG play (we may need him to play more against Detriot or Philly's bigger backcourt), and Turk's turnovers.

Implied in those two concerns, I guess, is the fear that Jameer will have a lot more trouble against either Billups or Miller, which means we'll need more from Dooling and Turk.

1) Defending the pick-and-roll
2) Looking out for backdoor cuts
3) Three second violations
4) Turnovers
5) Forcing turnovers
6) Getting the ball to Dwight
7) Driving instead of shooting
Offensive rebounding (we should have two players there, not just D12)
9) Running sets
10) Ball movement

defense and turnovers

craig01 wrote:Defense, rebounding, turnovers, shooting, ball movement, rotations, etc.

LOL.

How about this: What do we not need to improve upon?

Focus.

We need to increase our mental focus, and cut down on lapses which allow an opponent to extend a lead or which lets them back in the game.

The shots will start falling..

Rashard and Hedo will start lighting it up from the outside..You cant expect their poor shooting to last.

Turnovers are the Magic's biggest problem IMO..They need to stop being careless with the ball.

mhectorgato wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



How about this: What do we not need to improve upon?

I was just doing the SVG thing.......

Take care of the ball

Yea, our failure to take care of the ball seems to be the only glaring weakness I've noticed so far.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats?sort=tor&league=nba&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2fhollinger%2fteamstats%3fsort%3dtor%26league%3dnba

Otherwise, I'm very proud to call myself a Magic fan.

Honestly winning the series with Hedo and Rashard cold from outside was one of the best things that could happen to this team. I think it gives the team a lot of confidence in its ability to overcome when things don't go smoothly. Look, these guys are too good shooters to continue to go cold from three. They will light it up again. But they both expanded their games tremendously. And it forced the rebirth of Jameer.

People look at Hedo as having a subpar series, but when you look at the figures, he averaged 17.8 pts, 7.8 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 3.4 turnovers (skewed by that bizarre stretch he had in game 4) on 42% shooting. Not that bad, and the shooting percentage certainly could have been worse. Rashard's figures were very balanced as well.

We need to improve VASTLY in 3 point shooting % or we are toast. Hedo and Shard specifically.

Dwight will have to shoot at least around his 60%.

We have to stop with the "unforced" turnovers. It is one thing to take a chance here and there but another just to play sloppy.

If we do all that we have a slim shot at Detroit. If Philly wins we simply have to hit some 3's and it's over.