Denton: D12, LEWIS UPSET ABOUT OFFENSIVE MELTDOWN IN LOSS

[magicfan4life05]

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.d ... rentPage=0

HOWARD, LEWIS UPSET ABOUT MAGIC'S OFFENSIVE MELTDOWN IN LOSS TO BLAZERS



ORLANDO -- An Orlando Magic squad attempting to make history Monday night instead looked like a disjointed team not yet ready for prime time.

Orlando beat up on dregs like Sacramento, Chicago, Washington and a struggling Philadelphia team en route to four consecutive home wins. But just like when they went up against the budding Atlanta Hawks in the season opener, the Magic were no match Monday for the young and hungry Portland Trail Blazers.

Orlando melted down offensively in the second half, going a staggering 11 minutes, three seconds without a field goal during one horrid stretch, allowing Portland to escape with a 106-99 win at Amway Arena.

``We just shut down out there and we can’t have that,’’ fumed Magic all-star center Dwight Howard. ``We have to keep playing and fight through rough stretches like we had.’’

Added Rashard Lewis, who suffered through another dreadful offensive game and had just six points: ``The offense isn’t clicking and the ball just starts sticking. Everybody was just going for their own stuff.’’

Usually when you have a guy who scored 29 points and another who scored 35 points, the offense was not the problem. The distribution of it was I guess. It's obvious the ball did not get to Howard when it was supposed to....ie when he was dominating and did not the ball in the 4th and was evident by his lack of 4th quarter score, and it's also obvious lewis wants more post ups so he can get more involved and I'm pretty sure earlier in the year when SVG said something like "they are complaining about shots" or something about one of the players it was lewis b/c he doesnt feel he's getting the kind of looks he wants. (and that's not a bad thing, I agree with him, the magic are paying him a boat load, you he needs to get the ball in his sweet spots, which is in the post sometimes....but who's job is it to get the ball to your dominant big man in the 4th quarter and to make sure shard gets the ball where he's most comfortable?

I don't know anymore maybe I'm hating on the pg again, or maybe there is a big problem in the lockeroom where people want more shots who aren't getting it, maybe there are too many scorers on this team and not enough shots to go around, or maybe it's just the 7th game of the year and ill just be quiet until we see more games and then make sound judgments....but I think we can all agree, there's something not right as of now.

[Magicalltheway]

We never had any designed plays for RL in the post to get him going. He lost few attempts and stayed in the funk. He never attacked the basket either. Good players dont necessarily score on jumpers every game. Once they realize their jumpers are not falling they get involved in different ways to win games. Instead he disappeard. Coach was partly to blame, but its also on the player. He is simply not playing smart basketball. thats all.

[MagicStarwipe]

When you have a guy like Dwight who is so dominant in the post it's hard to get other guys post ups. Dwight is just too effective to go away from. However Rashard should be the number 1 option when Dwight is on the bench. So far in his time with the Magic he hasn't been.

[Forest]

I think our entire offense is dissorganized. It is still working out its kinks. Dwight is becoming the focal point in our offense more so than previous seasons. Hedo and Rashard honestly looked confused in what their role is on offense and when to pick and choose what points in the game to be aggressive.

But Rashard is often the odd man out as he was most of last season. He is left shooting threes in the corner. It is both SVG and Rashards fault. But ultimately Rashard needs to demand the ball in the post. Like someone said earlier when Dwight is not in the game Rashard should be getting some opportunities in the post.

I am not too worried about it. The offense is the only reason we have lost 3 games this season. Once it gets going, which means Rashard, Hedo, and Dwight all get rolling at the same time, this team will look great.

[trebone]

I still feel our weakest position is the pg spot, I like jameer but he would be better suited playing a 6th man scorer ala ben gordon. Peaches has not impressed me one bit on the defensive end, he plays to erratically and just kinda runs around scrambling. He needs to work on his mechanics because he has all the athleticism to be a very capable defender.

[The Favero]

It's a bench. We have ZERO scoring on the bench besides maybe Bogans. I repeat ZERO. We'll never be a legit team, unless we allow our bench enough PT to build confidence and start to score.

[j-ragg]

I don't understand why we went away from Dwight for so long. I know he missed a few free throws but he had freaking Channing Frye on him. We just ran iso plays for Hedo who would run into someone and get a foul call.

[EasternMagic]

This is strange cause for most of that game our ball movement was going pretty darn good, and then AJ starts the 4th quarter and the next 11 minutes we just are dead, Bogans Battie and Courtney are the only guys getting PT. Courtney still can't find his shot, but he is undoubtedly playing great defense out there. Bogans is holding his own doing pretty well, but when Brandon Roy decided he was going to end the game in th 4th he had his way with bogans. We might as well keep trying JJ especially in nights like last night when Shard cant hit the broad side of a barn. I am fully supportive of not playing Brian Cook at all, I was at the game last night and the whole time he was flirtting with a girl (not that good looking) sitting across from me, he wasnt even paying attention to the game. I think we should play Gortat more. We should have played our bench more during that Wizzards game to get them more into it... the Mike Dantonie 7 man system might not work for us.

[TheRevTy]

Ok, I have a question.

Why is it that when the offense goes stagnant, Jameer is solely to blame. But when I talk about trading Hedo, there is massive outcry because Hedo is our best playmaker?

If he is so good of a playmaker, why isn't he making plays for his teammates?

Note: I am not saying Jameer is without fault. He stunk it up last night.

We are still trying to figure out how to balance all these players. I honestly don't know if it is possible.

[magicfan4life05]

My bad to mods and SS_MagicMark

I was supposed to only post 3 paragraphs of the article, so ill go ahead and make those edits.

[spinedoc]

Ok, I have a question.

Why is it that when the offense goes stagnant, Jameer is solely to blame. But when I talk about trading Hedo, there is massive outcry because Hedo is our best playmaker?

If he is so good of a playmaker, why isn't he making plays for his teammates?

Note: I am not saying Jameer is without fault. He stunk it up last night.

We are still trying to figure out how to balance all these players. I honestly don't know if it is possible.

Totally agree. When we get too much Hedo, the team struggles. The whole second half was all about Hedo getting his groove going, and not getting others involved. True, some of the guys were struggling, but all the more reason to try harder to get them involved in other ways. I'm getting really tired of the Hedo show. Lets trade him already and get a real pf and another pg. I don't like how we are built any longer, its a frustrating roller coaster ride. We have two scorers on this team Dwight and Shard, the rest should fill in to support roles around them.

[Cammo101]

Did you guys even watch the game? When the ball ran through Hedo we were unstoppable, when it ran through Jameer and AJ we could do nothing. The reason we could not score early in the 4th was because we went away from Hedo and Dwight.

How anyone could have watched that game last night and come away with the problem being too much Turk is beyond me. Turk is the reason we didn't lose by 30.

PS: When you do watch the game, observe how average Outlaw is and how awful Channing Frye is. Then tell me if you still want to trade Turk for them.

[whocares]

1. the hedo love-fest has got to stop.
2. the guy only scored 35, could not win the ball game all by himself because most of his teammates were busy stinking.
3. you selfish, good-for-nothing, ballhog.
4. foreigner to boot.
5. he has to be traded as soon as possible along with other tradeable assets so that jameer and rashard can share his spotlight.

[spinedoc]

Did you guys even watch the game? When the ball ran through Hedo we were unstoppable, when it ran through Jameer and AJ we could do nothing. The reason we could not score early in the 4th was because we went away from Hedo and Dwight.

How anyone could have watched that game last night and come away with the problem being too much Turk is beyond me. Turk is the reason we didn't lose by 30.

PS: When you do watch the game, observe how average Outlaw is and how awful Channing Frye is. Then tell me if you still want to trade Turk for them.

Why do you always ask if people watched the games or not like everything is so obvious? Yes, we watched the game and apparently saw things differently than you. That is possible btw. Of course you will see that Hedo filled the void for others as they couldn't do anything, blaming the rest of the team, that is one way to look at it. However, I see Hedo dominating the ball while others struggle to find any rhythm within the offense. Part of it is definitely Stan's fault, but a good part of that imo is Hedo himself. I totally see Grant Hill part deux with him. Not even Dwight got any looks in the second half hardly. What exactly should be our priorities with this team? I am very tired of Hedo being so damn high on the list. The guy was a utility bench player prior to getting Dwight and Shard, and now he's the homers favorite player simply because he puts up numbers now. The problem is too often its to the detriment of others.

And yes, I would still do that trade of Hedo and junk for Frye, Outlaw, and Sergio. Frye struggled a bit admittedly last night, but this trade would give us so much more balance than we have right now. We are a very hot and cold team as we still try and find the proper roles of our two starting sf's. The question could be, why can't you see what I see?

[EasternMagic]

Last night, I put a lot of the blame on Rashard, he played horrible... Jameer wasn't great but he wasnt awful, 10 pts 7 ast and 6 reb isnt bad. We obviously need another back up PG cause AJ isn't doing crap out there. I wish they would play lee at the point, and then let JJ come off the bench at the two after Bogans. Hedo did what he had to to keep us in that game last night, I'm not mad at him, when noone else could do anything him and dwight had to single handedly keep us in it. And suprisingly Bogans helped us late (besides that horrible turnover he had).

[magicfan4life05]

Ok, I have a question.

Why is it that when the offense goes stagnant, Jameer is solely to blame. But when I talk about trading Hedo, there is massive outcry because Hedo is our best playmaker?

If he is so good of a playmaker, why isn't he making plays for his teammates?

Note: I am not saying Jameer is without fault. He stunk it up last night.

We are still trying to figure out how to balance all these players. I honestly don't know if it is possible.

Totally agree. When we get too much Hedo, the team struggles. The whole second half was all about Hedo getting his groove going, and not getting others involved. True, some of the guys were struggling, but all the more reason to try harder to get them involved in other ways. I'm getting really tired of the Hedo show. Lets trade him already and get a real pf and another pg. I don't like how we are built any longer, its a frustrating roller coaster ride. We have two scorers on this team Dwight and Shard, the rest should fill in to support roles around them.

I 100% agree with this post.

[MitchellUK]

It's hard to criticise a player who drops 35 and shoots over 50%. However, the second half was all about Hedo calling his own number. He started the night 6-6 and went 5-15 the rest of the way, and some of his shot selection in the 4th quarter was abysmal. Dwight was monstrous in the first half, but barely saw the ball in the second - Howard isn't going to be streaky, if you get him the ball near the bucket, the majority of his shots are going to go in, or he's going to cause his opponents to foul out, fast. But we stopped doing that. To top it off, Shard was barely involved other than jacking up the odd outside shot every few minutes, which is hardly going to help him out of a shooting slump. So as much as I can't blame Hedo for trying to take over after a hot start, it didn't make for good team basketball.

[spinedoc]

1. the hedo love-fest has got to stop.
2. the guy only scored 35, could not win the ball game all by himself because most of his teammates were busy stinking.
3. you selfish, good-for-nothing, ballhog.
4. foreigner to boot.
5. he has to be traded as soon as possible along with other tradeable assets so that jameer and rashard can share his spotlight.

Great sarcasm, poor sentence structure, but we still lost the game didn't we? Kind of reminds you of the old Philly team when AI would put up mad points but still lose night in night out huh? What was their solution to the problem?

[mhectorgato]

I'm starting to come around to the get a PF mindset, despite my early reluctance.

[Forest]

Trade Hedo what an original idea. I recall similar ideas last year that went dormant and they will again.