2022-2023 Regular Season Game 43: Orlando Magic (16-26) at Utah Jazz (21-23) - 9pm

[tooler]

It's getting more and more clear with each game that Franz is currently our best and most impactful player by some margin. His ability to carry all kinds of lineups made mostly of bench players has been the key to our improvement since the start of December. And he is killing it in the 4th quarter.

If he had hit one more 3 in the 4th we could start building the statue.

I actually love that he got blocked at the end. Valuable lesson learned. It's so funny how consistent he is that one bad decision feels out of character. Like Paolo having a bad game or two because we forget he's a rookie.

[Last Guardian]

I think we win if Bol doesn’t step onto the court

That bad huh? Maybe I will rewatch so I can see this for myself.

Worse, because to go along with his usual putrid defense he was actually not good offensively in this game. In a game that was never out of reach Magic were blown out in his minutes. Forget JI and Chuma, Magic win if they just play admiral over Bol last night.

I’m not saying I’m done with him. But he needs a lot of work. Occasionally impressive coast to coast takes is not really enough to help the team win.

[JoshuaPotter]

Well Paulo had a "bad game" and still scored 19.......he isn't the problem.

Meanwhile Franz with 26 is clearly (hopefully) going to push Paulo to become even better himself. This is such a great problem to have vs the last decade.

Good to see everyone at least agreeing that for 1 game our "G" situation sucked. Truth dart is it sucks inn general and it sucks so bad that nobody wants our crap guards for anything that isn't a pick or one of our big assets.

Overall this was a good game to learn and grow from for the entire roster regardless. Can't say I am not happy even though I am not happy with the roster situation in its entirety at the moment.

A slight bone does need to be tossed to our guards remembering at brief stints that they have some decent defensive efficiency numbers. I would like to see that for 48 minutes.

[ucfmay2000]

Orlando lost a road game to a quality team close. This is a "good" loss. And frankly, with improved SG depth, this is a game that would have been won.

G-Harris is not an answer. He is consistently proving that.

What?!?!?! Gary Harris is our only competent guard in rotation right now. Blaming him while not mentioning Anthony, Fultz and Ross is just funny. Unbelievable. We have two incompetent point guards, but the problem is Gary Harris sure..... Fultz should not start and Anthony should be out of rotation on most nights. Its obvious when you watch it, but even stats support it.....

I am blaming management for not having a competent starting-quality SG on the roster.

..

Bingo… they have been building the team based on length and potential. They definitely need shooter around Paolo and Franz.

[basketballRob]

Gary Harris and Bamba are eligible to be traded tomorrow. Harris was held out after halftime and isn't on the injured list.

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[zaymon]

Orlando lost a road game to a quality team close. This is a "good" loss. And frankly, with improved SG depth, this is a game that would have been won.

G-Harris is not an answer. He is consistently proving that.

What?!?!?! Gary Harris is our only competent guard in rotation right now. Blaming him while not mentioning Anthony, Fultz and Ross is just funny. Unbelievable. We have two incompetent point guards, but the problem is Gary Harris sure..... Fultz should not start and Anthony should be out of rotation on most nights. Its obvious when you watch it, but even stats support it.....

our guard play overall was bad. HArris did only play 12 mins, but those were not good 12 mins

Those were better minutes than Fultz and Anthony gave us. He was guarding Clarkson and while he had some reach in fouls he was decent overall. On offense he was 1/2 from 3 until he injured his hand which is better than anything our point guards did last night.
Gary is not a star, but he is a decent enough starter unlike Fultz and Anthony who are reserves at best, propably out of rotation on good teams.

[thelead]

Suggs is obviously a work in progress on offense but he has reigned in a lot of the terrible attempts and wild drives. What he brings on defense can't be ignored and is important to have on the roster. Him not getting any burn after helping turn the moment was wrong... unless the goal isn't to win. That isn't to say we would have won with him in the game but he certainly earned the minutes. Not sure I fully grasp what Mosley is doing sometimes. The rotations were fairly solid otherwise though.

[drsd]

our guard play overall was bad. HArris did only play 12 mins, but those were not good 12 mins

.... and Suggs comes in for 14 minutes to go on an 0-for stat line. Sad.

Anthony does 5 points in 19 minutes played.

Ross was the "star" guard in this game, and he shot 33% from the field.

,,,

and if we want to consider Bol in this discussion, ow does player surrender more points in plus/minus than minutes played. HOW?

[GameOver25]

Suggs is obviously a work in progress on offense but he has reigned in a lot of the terrible attempts and wild drives. What he brings on defense can't be ignored and is important to have on the roster. Him not getting any burn after helping turn the moment was wrong... unless the goal isn't to win. That isn't to say we would have won with him in the game but he certainly earned the minutes. Not sure I fully grasp what Mosley is doing sometimes. The rotations were fairly solid otherwise though.

No one is talking about it now, but at some point the Fultz/Suggs debate will become a thing, because I'm not sure the front office and coaching staff is willing to run a Fultz/Suggs backcourt.