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Magic Upset Over Lack Of Respect

Just to make sure we have a game thread I went and made one. Not sure if I was going to be able to make one before the game tomorrow night. Go Hawks

This is an extremly important game, a win here will propel us into a great sretch run. In the past we have played well against the magic and I'm looking forward to another win Monday. If you take a look at are schedule we have a chance to finish the season with an above .500 record, and jump into the 6th seed. Which is are only change at getting into the next round. TIME TO RISE UP ATLANTA !

Seems like injuries are having an effect on Bibby and Smith. We'll need both those guys tonight. Lets hope we can defend the 3 ball. Hypothetically, we match up well against Orlando but its hard to imagine us winning against anyone but Miami, and we can barely do that.

Get'em fired up Woody.

^^^ Somehow the words "Woody" and "fired" always end up in the same sentence.

I would like to win this one(we probably won't) but I'm really looking forward to the Houston game. All I have been hearing is the media talking about how easy their next 3 games are(just assuming they are going to stomp us). IIRC we were the only team to beat the Lakers on their 9 game road trip and the Rockets were also hot when coming into Phillips last year and lost. That will probably be the biggest game of the season.

didn't houston just get finished crushing us in houston???

but anyways, this is a game that we need to win in order to hold on to the 8th spot. we can't trade wins for losses much less start up another losing streak. at some point this team has to realize that losing doesn't advance you to your overall goal.

orlando is a good three point shooting team and they all seem to give us fits since bibby got here so we need to show that we can defend the three well. it usually takes 3-5 games for a team weakness to be exploited and it takes another 3-5 games for a team to patch up a weakness. with that in mind, i expect atlanta to defend the three well and win this game. i'm looking for bibby and marvin to have good games. hawks win by 3.

We aren't playing with the same fire that helped us win in Orlando. A win would be nice, but how can you expect that much after what happened in Charlotte?

like i said, it was going to take time for a team to really work on a weakness and since getting bibby it was defending the three (which we did pretty well with AJ) but i think that the team is finally through working on the chink in the armor. maybe i'm wrong but it wouldn't surprise me to see a better effort on the perimeter.

A lot of the perimeter D has to do with Chillz/Salim not knowing how to play D off the ball. A lot of that will change when we get IV back.

I really think that Salim's contributions on the Defensive side have been underplayed recently.

Salim and the other bench players, haven't been the ones blowing the big leads, or coming out dead in the 3rd quarter. Have they been perfect? No, not saying that they have. Do I think they should start? well, I might not mind seeing Mario play with the starters and Marvin coming off the bench, since the couple times that's happened it seems to have worked wonders for their energy. But for all the talk about Salim's defense, he hasn't been the biggest offender by far, and IMO has done pretty tidy job. His steals are actually proportional to the amount of minutes he's played this season as compared to past seasons, and he's doubled his career blocks this season.

Salim's D has gotten a little better with PT. But he is terrible off the ball and fighting through screens. I like that he works hard, and clearly he is improving.

If he had someone calling out screens, maybe he would have less trouble fighting through them...

Same with our other guards.

One of the two things I completely fail to understand -- only two? you ask; well, two that have shown no sign of change over 2.5+ years of playing together as a core -- is their complete lack of competency at handling picks and screens. (And Woodson's supposed to be a defensive coach, no?) From failing to call screens, to poor switching, to bad help decisions... (The other thing I fail to comprehend is their inability to play against the Zone.)

Man I don't even want to think about us playing against the zone! I'm pretty sure guys are calling out screens, this is the NBA.

The Hawks always play us well. Good luck tonight... can't wait to see Horford in action. Hope he has a big game but the Magic win.

How did Zaza miss that?

Followed by a bogus foul call. Jameer bumped into Dwight Howard's rump and loses the ball yet Bibby gets called for the foul.

Shame.

Why isn't Law in? We need some defense so we sub in Salim...wtf?

Marvin with the throwdown!

WTF were Adonal Foyle and Zaza doing during Marvin's dunk.

Zaza is just garbage. I think the Magic going to push the lead right back to double digits when Dwight comes back in.