2023-2024 Regular Season Game 1: Houston Rockets (0-0) at Orlando Magic (0-0) - 7pm

[Dub_Sax]

How is it that everyone watching the game last night saw JI block Jalen Green's shot on two emphatic occasions, yet the Magic's game day stats guy only gave him one block for the whole game?

Sent from my SM-G781V using RealGM mobile app

[VFX]

Amen Thompson and his -34 is good reminder why playing rookies takes winning chances out of window.

.

Pretty disappointing to see a guy that played professionally have such horrific handles.

Goes to show you that dominating a league with sub-g league talent means absolutely nothing. There is at least some semblance of structure in college.

[eyriq]

Amen Thompson and his -34 is good reminder why playing rookies takes winning chances out of window.

.

Pretty disappointing to see a guy that played professionally have such horrific handles.

Goes to show you that dominating a league with sub-g league talent means absolutely nothing. There is at least some semblance of structure in college.

Those handles were shockingly bad

[Knightro]

At the risk of sounding like basketballrob, Black is a full year younger than Thompson as well.

Age wise, the twins were NCAA sophomores coming out, not freshmen.

[Optimus_Steel]

Went to check Clutchfans....we made that board go into meltdown mode

Sent from my Pixel 7 using RealGM mobile app

[Ducklett]

Love you Pepe but you are the only guy that could be miserable after a 30 point win lol. I hear your points and I mostly agree, but it is hard to care about the bad when it was that fun to watch the game (I finally got to watch it, girl wanted to hang out so I didn't see it live). What the hell was Isaac flexing on Green for after the non-block... was he just hyped or do they have beef?

[drsd]

Anthony Black's PER is 64.5

You gotta feel for Aaron Holiday.

[ibraheim718]

Love you Pepe but you are the only guy that could be miserable after a 30 point win lol. I hear your points and I mostly agree, but it is hard to care about the bad when it was that fun to watch the game (I finally got to watch it, girl wanted to hang out so I didn't see it live). What the hell was Isaac flexing on Green for after the non-block... was he just hyped or do they have beef?

He habitually loses sight of the bigger picture. You have one of the 5 youngest teams in the league. Anyone can nitpick and criticize young players.. it's easy to do. I prefer to be optimistic with younger players because you never know how they're going to pan out.. then one day you're watching them and poof a light goes off in their heads. We (knick fans) get criticized for loving our youth too much and sticking with them too long. But it's so much more fun that way.

[pepe1991]

Love you Pepe but you are the only guy that could be miserable after a 30 point win lol. I hear your points and I mostly agree, but it is hard to care about the bad when it was that fun to watch the game (I finally got to watch it, girl wanted to hang out so I didn't see it live). What the hell was Isaac flexing on Green for after the non-block... was he just hyped or do they have beef?

Can you explain how i'm misserable? I voted for Cole/Franz for west, i wrote that Cole's contract is in ballpark with Monk in terms of value per dollar.

I only said Houston had to burn money on SOMEBODY because NBA forces teams to do so ( fact) and that Thompson was terrible ( was). Thompson did have one of worst plus minuses i can remember, and indeed Houston had to "waste" money on players that don't really fit their timeline nor anything else mostly because they were near $50M below required salary minimum. So they swigned for Vleet for 2+1 year and front louded Brooks contract. That was non- Magic-related comment. I only brought that up because people were asking why Vleet got so much. Answer is depressing- Houston had to throw +35M on somebody.

That's pretty much it. I will hold Magic on bigger standards than comparing them to team bound to win 25 games. AND i even said that you can't start season any better than with home court, 30 points win.

I think you mistake some of comments here with my posts

[JoshuaPotter]

Apparently R. Lewis and Hedo were there last night. Lewis even spent a few minutes doing a radio broadcast.

Notable people he talked about that were interesting to him was Jonathan Isaac & Cole Anthony. Hopes that Jonathan can stay healthy. Felt that the energy in the building was so big he wanted to put a Jersey on and go shoot some 3 ball.

I only am able to listen in so ill just do my simple recap.
- As stated before we have the ability to create an elite defensive team.
- Fultz 0-0 3 ball, ho hum.
- FVV is better then what is displayed. Really I think that entire Houston team is better then they played last night. They just are obviously missing something in chemistry.
- AB, Jett, and Goga are our human victory flags.
- Garry Harris has the potential to be a starter caliber guard among 2nd stringers.

Where do we go from here? Well I am very interested in seeing Fultz / Cole against Scoot.

Also if Cole keeps playing like this the 1/2 people here who were high on Cole last year I predict will be even higher now and the Cole as starter train will probably get serious traction by December if he doesn't snap back to reality.

[Residual-Heat]

Yesterday's game was fun. Let's give some credit to Mosley for getting the guys ready and coming out with that energy. Now do it for the next 81 games

[Ducklett]

Love you Pepe but you are the only guy that could be miserable after a 30 point win lol. I hear your points and I mostly agree, but it is hard to care about the bad when it was that fun to watch the game (I finally got to watch it, girl wanted to hang out so I didn't see it live). What the hell was Isaac flexing on Green for after the non-block... was he just hyped or do they have beef?

Can you explain how i'm misserable? I voted for Cole/Franz for west, i wrote that Cole's contract is in ballpark with Monk in terms of value per dollar.

I only said Houston had to burn money on SOMEBODY because NBA forces teams to do so ( fact) and that Thompson was terrible ( was). Thompson did have one of worst plus minuses i can remember, and indeed Houston had to "waste" money on players that don't really fit their timeline nor anything else mostly because they were near $50M below required salary minimum. So they swigned for Vleet for 2+1 year and front louded Brooks contract. That was non- Magic-related comment. I only brought that up because people were asking why Vleet got so much. Answer is depressing- Houston had to throw +35M on somebody.

That's pretty much it. I will hold Magic on bigger standards than comparing them to team bound to win 25 games. AND i even said that you can't start season any better than with home court, 30 points win.

I think you mistake some of comments here with my posts

The problem with text is your have to guess the person's feelings. What you wrote I took as being negative, which is usually not a positive emotion, which is why I said miserable. I don't think you are sitting there at the keyboard in a depression or anything, I am just saying enjoy the game for what it is. I am sure there will be a ton of things to be truly negative about once we play some playoff teams.

[pepe1991]

Love you Pepe but you are the only guy that could be miserable after a 30 point win lol. I hear your points and I mostly agree, but it is hard to care about the bad when it was that fun to watch the game (I finally got to watch it, girl wanted to hang out so I didn't see it live). What the hell was Isaac flexing on Green for after the non-block... was he just hyped or do they have beef?

Can you explain how i'm misserable? I voted for Cole/Franz for west, i wrote that Cole's contract is in ballpark with Monk in terms of value per dollar.

I only said Houston had to burn money on SOMEBODY because NBA forces teams to do so ( fact) and that Thompson was terrible ( was). Thompson did have one of worst plus minuses i can remember, and indeed Houston had to "waste" money on players that don't really fit their timeline nor anything else mostly because they were near $50M below required salary minimum. So they swigned for Vleet for 2+1 year and front louded Brooks contract. That was non- Magic-related comment. I only brought that up because people were asking why Vleet got so much. Answer is depressing- Houston had to throw +35M on somebody.

That's pretty much it. I will hold Magic on bigger standards than comparing them to team bound to win 25 games. AND i even said that you can't start season any better than with home court, 30 points win.

I think you mistake some of comments here with my posts

The problem with text is your have to guess the person's feelings. What you wrote I took as being negative, which is usually not a positive emotion, which is why I said miserable. I don't think you are sitting there at the keyboard in a depression or anything, I am just saying enjoy the game for what it is. I am sure there will be a ton of things to be truly negative about once we play some playoff teams.

But i trully don't think anything i wrote today could be seen as negative. If something made you feel bad, sorry!

edit: Now when i think about it, i was very negative toward: Houston, called Jabari (still) overrated and said Vleet is on speed decline. Houston fans would be mad

[3ddman23]

Pretty disappointing to see a guy that played professionally have such horrific handles.

Goes to show you that dominating a league with sub-g league talent means absolutely nothing. There is at least some semblance of structure in college.

Those handles were shockingly bad

And whats crazy is he is considered the "pg" of the two lol. To me it's the classic case of falling in the love with a "big pg" when a lot of these guy don't have true full time pg handles.

[penny_nz]

The camaraderie on this team is amazing. Back in the Vuc/Evan/AG era they could barely muster a golf clap on the bench. I guess extraverted personalities have something to do with it as well.

Man it makes looking back at those years pretty tough, fair play to all of us who sat through it!

Sadly with work this year (and time zones in New Zealand) going to have to watch more games delayed than I'd like.

But wow, what a great first game of the season! Can't ask for much more than beating the team in front of you by 30!

That front court of Franz / Paolo / WCJ is building into something special. I still have doubts as to the best back court rotation, but right now don't change what isn't broken. Cole looked amazing.

Also, so happy for JI, back on the court and getting some highlights and huge pop from the fans, man oh man does he deserve to hear that.

[penny_nz]

OT: is stuff okay? I saw him landing pretty bad after I guess 1st quarter TO ladder stunt. Or am I overreacting?

In his 35th year, Stuff doesn't seem quite as spry as he once was.

Wait wait wait.... you telling me the guy inside the costume is still the same one all throughout?

Wait wait WAIT ... you're telling me he's not REALLY a dragon?? Childhood ruined

[Optimus_Steel]

Goes to show you that dominating a league with sub-g league talent means absolutely nothing. There is at least some semblance of structure in college.

Those handles were shockingly bad

And whats crazy is he is considered the "pg" of the two lol. To me it's the classic case of falling in the love with a "big pg" when a lot of these guy don't have true full time pg handles.

Shouldn't the minimum prerequisite of a PG be that they are good ball handlers?

[thelead]

We DOMINATED the boards. That was the biggest positive IMO (other than winning by 30 ). That shows how focused the team was and how physical they were being. They great thing was that it was a team effort. We outrebounded them 57 to 31 and no one individual had more than 8. Impressive.

[SOUL]

We DOMINATED the boards. That was the biggest positive IMO (other than winning by 30 ). That shows how focused the team was and how physical they were being. They great thing was that it was a team effort. We outrebounded them 57 to 31 and no one individual had more than 8. Impressive.

It's funny 'cause last year we were a very good rebounding team and forced people into top 5 worst three point percentages even though it felt like teams hit a bunch of threes and always got timely rebounds.

[eyriq]

I'm always surprised when Suggs misses his shots. His form and confidence is good. I think he'll get there.