2024-2025 Regular Season Game 24: Orlando Magic (15-8) at Philadelphia 76ers (5-14) - 7:30pm

[RookieStar]

Good news, vs Suns, Durant is already ruled out

We are definitely lucky that many teams we played since Paolos injury have ton of missing players too. But still fantastic job to win so many games without him.

If you think about it... we face teams without their best player while we also dont have our best player... so.... its all equal?

[drsd]

If Orlando losses, blow it up. Drive the tank; get the ping-pong balls!

Say what you want, but all road wins are good wins. Yes Orlando's offense, yet again, was miserable. I don't care.

[drsd]

Box score thoughts:

Orlando "won" the FG% battle and won the game.
"Won" in quotes as this was 0.4881 to 0.4878. That is a victory of 0.03% LOL

And actually the Magic lost the eFG% battle.

The game was won in the end becasue Philly missed 8 FTs. This resulted in Orlando going +5 at the charity stripe on made free-bees, in a game won by 4. Whatever. I'll take the win!

p.s. with this win, Orlando now has the same win total as the West leader OKC.

[UCFJayBird]

I didn't realize just how bad our initial schedule was until last night's game when Jeff Turner was talking about how we've played more games than anyone else and far more road games than most. I knew about the heavy road game schedule, but didn't realize we had also just played more games than most.

Magic have played 24 games, 15 on the road. Only two other teams have played 13 games on the road. Most others are around 11-12.
Two other teams (Pistons and Clippers) have played 24. Pistons also had a tough draw, as they've played 13 on the road, Clippers had it much more favorable with 10 on the road.

Our record just looks amazing when you factor in Paolo being out for 19 of those games.

[Bergmaniac]

Good win in the end given how exhausted the team must be at this point.

Good to see Isaac scoring efficiently and the offense looking good in his minutes right after I posted about the offensive struggles in his inutes this year.

[eyriq]

Gotta keep that confidence up

Read on Twitter

?t=7Q11RP5jm87LIYuIxRAJPg&s=19

[eyriq]

Suggs/KCP/Franz/WCJ/Goga has two stints in the first half and went -4 and 0. They only had one stint in the second half and went +1.

Not a great game from that unit. They put together two runs of 5-0 and one run of 9-1, but they gave up three runs of 6-0 and one of 5-0.

What do we think of the jumbo lineup of AB/Franz/TDS/JI/Moe? The alternative is with Suggs instead of Franz. The Suggs version was +4, the Franz version was +3.

I love that we are running a 9 man rotation. I wonder what happens when Harris is back.

[KillMonger]

i mean at this point....they can't stop him, franz can only stop himself by not being aggressive....i mean it's crazy what he's doing right now....all these teams gameplan for him, they scout him they know what he's going to do down to the foot he's going to use first for his euro....they know he's the only real viable offense for our team, and they still can't stop him, another 30 ball.....shout out to franz for stepping his confidence up, the game was always there but he wasn't playing with this kind of confidence in the beginning of the season.....and when paolo comes back it's really going to be up.....have a Goku/Vegeta situation here

[DiplomaticMagic]

Dante is so bad at play-by-play....someone could take a fadeaway contested jumper and miss and he will say "he had a good look at it"

[JF5]

Because in 32 minutes of play against a team with a 6’8 3rd string big man WCJ could only get 2 points on 1-4 shooting, 6 rebounds plus a couple of assists and the team was -7 points worse with him on the court. Why are you defending that stat line? If Goga posted those stats you’d be up in arms about it.

Both Goga and Moe Wagner beat his entire stat line in only 20 minutes of play.

When have I EVER been that critical of Goga? I'm the type of poster whose able to recognize a players limitations/poor play at one point and state they shouldn't be playing at that moment or they're not providing what they typically do and and leave it at that. I often have to come to the defense of the player or the team because other posters just meltdown and I try to play contrarian most of the time to my own detriment. Like when the Magic got slapped around by the Knicks the other night.

And Goga DOES put up those stats from time to time. He's an interior player who can't score than 5 feet out of the paint and has barely any post game. He gets his points off dump-offs/lobs/putbacks I don't get mad at that because that's the type of player he is and that's HIS ROLE.

I've always maintained that he is a great interior defender and is formidable against average to weaker teams and there is never a drop off during those games. But against ELITE competition (Where its typically a very talented offensive/defensive team) his inability to really move his feet against Elite Perimeter players compromises the TEAM defense and, also his inability to space the floor makes it easy to clog the paint and make it harder for guys like Paolo and Franz to get in the paint and it makes the team so much easier to guard. Like we're seeing it now with the team Offense easily being the worst in the league (which no one talks about either), but we're winning so it doesn't matter until they lose then it becomes an issue.

Also, I like how you just completely ignore Wendell's role changing as they've now focused the offense strictly centered around Franz and Paolo since last year. His role is just to play defense, get rebounds, and hit the occasional shot from outside. It's not really an indictment on him, it's just what the team wants out of him. He does have all 3 levels of scoring to a decent degree as he's averaged 12-15 points before. But that's not how the team wants to use him though I think with a better offensive system and him staying healthy (Which he is a big if) he could easily do more. I understand he can be frustrating to watch at times like any other player. But because what he does defensively is not as flashy as Goga having 3-4 highlight blocks and that being in ingrained in casuals minds in how they think a big man should play (which to me doesn't make sense in 2024 given how advanced and perimeter oriented offenses have become). People just forget the importance of what Wendell brings with his rotational/perimeter defense, and his spacing.

Plus, you put up those stats about "Wendell being a negative on the court", Wasn't Suggs and KCP -10 on the court as well? I even quoted you last night saying specifically for Suggs that the eye-test didn't match how well Suggs was playing. So its clearly a narrative that you're pushing here to make WCJ look worse than what the eye test was. Pointing that out since that point makes you look bad essentially if we're going by +/- stats.

lol, you only really comment specifically to crap on Goga and Black or to pretend WCJ should be absolved of all criticism.

When have I crapped on them? Pull up the receipts. I want to see these non-analysis post of their play being so critical of these guys. I've never gone on 5-10 post straight on the same game thread stating that they were awful. I'd like to see that since you claim I do that all the time.

The bench are the only reason outside of Franz and Goga that we won this game. Black had 10,5 and 7 whilst shooting 50% from the floor. But your only comment is to defend WCJ’s poor play against a team with no one taller than 6’8. I mean, yeah we’re all biased including you.

are you kidding me? Did you even watch the second half at all? Goga was benched due to his injuries and Carter was on the court most of the time in the second half when they built an 8 point lead early part to the middle of the 4th quarter. He helped the team win the game. Seriously, this is absolutely insufferable. The mental hoops you go through to just downplay players is hilarious.

Black on the other hand I agree he helped this team out big time. He was pretty good this game.

[eyriq]

Dante is so bad at play-by-play....someone could take a fadeaway contested jumper and miss and he will say "he had a good look at it"

While also completely getting the player's name wrong. He's terrible.

[three3d]

This teams youth and defense can be huge advantages for us if they’d just use it as an advantage. Jacking up 3’s constantly is just out right lazy offense, make the defense actually have to play defense and fight through screens, run LOTS of PnR, attack the rim and the midrange. We can play 94 foot of defense and 47 feet of lock down defense.

[Bensational]

Plus, you put up those stats about "Wendell being a negative on the court", Wasn't Suggs and KCP -10 on the court as well? I even quoted you last night saying specifically for Suggs that the eye-test didn't match how well Suggs was playing. So it’s clearly a narrative that you're pushing here to make WCJ look worse than what the eye test was. Pointing that out since that point makes you look bad essentially if we're going by +/- stats.

“Eye test doesn’t match the stats” most likely means your eye test is wrong. It’s just a simple fact that the team gave up 10 points when Suggs and KCP were on the court, and 7 when WCJ was on the court.

You might point to steals to say Suggs and KCP did well, but I said it in the thread that Suggs was leaving his man open on the perimeter to chase highlight blocks and that was hurting us more than any points in the paint were. KCP couldn’t defend McCain with a 6 inch advantage in height and picked up steals with hands in passing lanes. 6ers were shooting 55% from 3 at half time because we weren’t defending the perimeter.

are you kidding me? Did you even watch the second half at all? Goga was benched due to his injuries and Carter was on the court most of the time in the second half when they built an 8 point lead early part to the middle of the 4th quarter. He helped the team win the game. Seriously, this is absolutely insufferable. The mental hoops you go through to just downplay players is hilarious.

Did you watch the 2nd half? The bench started the lead in the 4th without WCJ. He was brought in at the 10 minute mark after Isaac tweaked his hamstring. Team was already up 6 when WCJ came in and they added another 2 points to the lead before Suggs and KCP came back in and the lead disappeared and took the game to the final seconds. If you want to talk about jumping through hoops to try to make a point take a look at yourself trying to credit WCJ with an 8 point lead when he only contributed to 2 points in that lead. Yeah, your eye test needs some recalibration because it’s producing faulty reports.

[T-Cat]

Dante is so bad at play-by-play....someone could take a fadeaway contested jumper and miss and he will say "he had a good look at it"

While also completely getting the player's name wrong. He's terrible.

I mean the worst is Jeff Turner with his corny phase "KA PA YAO"!

It's like nails on a chalkboard

While I'm not a Hornets fan, their commentators are very entertaining!

[eyriq]

Dante is so bad at play-by-play....someone could take a fadeaway contested jumper and miss and he will say "he had a good look at it"

While also completely getting the player's name wrong. He's terrible.

I mean the worst is Jeff Turner with his corny phase "KA PA YAO"!

It's like nails on a chalkboard

While I'm not a Hornets fan, their commentators are very entertaining!

I LOVED their play-by-play, had me in stitches watching their game against the Knicks.

[JF5]

“Eye test doesn’t match the stats” most likely means your eye test is wrong. It’s just a simple fact that the team gave up 10 points when Suggs and KCP were on the court, and 7 when WCJ was on the court.

So I rewatched the 2nd half of the Sixers game for argument purposes since I have Fanduel Sports, lol. And Carter played VERY STRONGLY in his time in from 10:33 from the 4th to when he fouled out at 1:21 in the 4th.

Footnotes when watching.

- Issac left the game at 10:33 in the 4th. Magic were up 83-77. The highest the Magic were up by 10 points by 4:04 when the score was 97-87. The lead was 99-91 with 3:17 left to go on in the 4th.

- Wendell around the 7:15 minute mark in the 4th he was able to effectively stay in front of McCain and McCain missed a tough layup lay-up.

- Wendell blocked Council at the 5:12 mark which was knocked out of bounds.

- Wendell around the 7:29 mark in the 4th made a tough layup putting the Magic up off an offensive rebound.

- Wendell around 8:14 was able to knock the ball off of a missed shot to Da Silva who made a layup to put the Magic up 89-81

- At some point early in the 4th (don't remember timeframe) recovers a loose ball Magic gain the possession.

- He was playing really good defense most of the second half on guys like Maxey and McCain. It was absolutely crazy he was able to stay in front of these guys until after the 3:30 minute mark of the 4th where he wasn't able to stay in front of them any longer.

Even the fouls he committed on both of them later in the 4th he did a very good job.

Also, there was a play earlier around the 3rd quarter (7 minute mark) he forced Maxey to shoot a tough 3 after he attempted to blow past him. It didn't work.

- He made really good passes to Suggs and M. Wagner for corner 3s but they missed them.

Seriously, if you watch what he did in that second half he was so good doing the little things and providing strong defense. He was awesome. So yes he absolutely passes the eye test.

Did you watch the 2nd half? The bench started the lead in the 4th without WCJ. He was brought in at the 10 minute mark after Isaac tweaked his hamstring. Team was already up 6 when WCJ came in and they added another 2 points to the lead before Suggs and KCP came back in and the lead disappeared and took the game to the final seconds. If you want to talk about jumping through hoops to try to make a point take a look at yourself trying to credit WCJ with an 8 point lead when he only contributed to 2 points in that lead. Yeah, your eye test needs some recalibration because it’s producing faulty reports.

I rewatched the 2nd half for you and have analysis at the top. You were pretty wrong about his performance after watching it again.

[Rainwater]

Are the Magic suddenly good again? After the NY game people made it seem like the Magic are one of the worse teams in the league, lol.

[RookieStar]

Are the Magic suddenly good again? After the NY game people made it seem like the Magic are one of the worse teams in the league, lol.

IF by people you mean the MAgic board here then that's normal

IF by people you mean everywhere else, then they know even the 72 win championship bulls lost twice to a probably tanking Raptors team so its normal

[VFX]

Not sure what people are talking about. Carter has looked abysmal in the last few games. Hes had a handful of good plays at most.

Goga being out against NY was a noticeable departure and Carter looks somehow better at PF despite making a negligible difference. He makes stupid fouls, complains to the ref, misses 20 games a year, and does absolutely nothing under the rim.

If Isaac wasn’t treated like a piece of historical artwork, by this FO and Mosely, Carter would never see the floor and nobody would notice.

[JoshuaPotter]

Not sure what people are talking about. Carter has looked abysmal in the last few games. Hes had a handful of good plays at most.

Goga being out against NY was a noticeable departure and Carter looks somehow better at PF despite making a negligible difference. He makes stupid fouls, complains to the ref, misses 20 games a year, and does absolutely nothing under the rim.

If Isaac wasn’t treated like a piece of historical artwork, by this FO and Mosely, Carter would never see the floor and nobody would notice.

Don't you dare besmirch my man Isaac like that again!

Lol

Seriously though Isaac thru injury just has such a notable impact he is just made of paper mache! I almost can't blame the org for making him a multi multi multi millionaire.