Magic @ Nuggets

[SD2042]

That was messed up that CA had to bring his game against the Magic tonight. Probably should've done better defensively to stop the Nuggets offenive flow.

[lovehoops01]

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Like I said, my post was not to hate on Carlos. My point is more the fact that both PGs feel like they are auditioning for more minutes and/or the starting job. So when they are in there they are in for themselves. Did you see Carlos start chucking shots as soon as he saw Nelson heading to the scorer's table?
Start one game , benched the next, play 20+ minutes one game, play 5 mins the next. These inconsistencies affect player production, and not just to the players in question but also everyone else trying to adjust to them. SVG needs to decide on a line-up/rotation and stick with it, almost midway through the season and we're still figuring out our starters?? this is crazy.

I was wondering if anyone else noticed that. SVG sends Jameer to the table to check in, but the Magic wait for a break in the action to make a substitution. Then Carlos takes shots on four of the next five possessions (and misses on three of them). Stan finally calls a timeout. The flow of the Magic's game just seemed to bog down at the beginning of the fourth quarter and never really got going again. They were able to keep themselves in the game for a while, but so many things started going Denver's way, freaky things sometimes.

And for those of you trying to pin the loss on Jameer...c'mon. They were doing fine when he came out of the game in the third quarter. He had 11 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, a steal and only one turnover.

If Hedo had had his regular game, the Magic would have been fine. He's been averaging around 20, and he had 8. The Nuggets are not a scrub team, folks.....They've got Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin. (If the Magic had a power forward who played with the energy of Kenyon, they wouldn't have these problems. And no, I don't see that as a slam on Rashard because I still believe that he is a small forward.)

By the same token, though, if you're looking at the roster for the long haul, I think you need to be careful about the moves you make this season and their long-term effect on the roster. They already made one mistake with Trevor -- though Evans has played really well the past couple games. They don't want to make another one out of desperation for that power forward that they so clearly need.

[SD2042]

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I was wondering if anyone else noticed that. SVG sends Jameer to the table to check in, but the Magic wait for a break in the action to make a substitution. Then Carlos takes shots on four of the next five possessions (and misses on three of them). Stan finally calls a timeout. The flow of the Magic's game just seemed to bog down at the beginning of the fourth quarter and never really got going again. They were able to keep themselves in the game for a while, but so many things started going Denver's way, freaky things sometimes.

And for those of you trying to pin the loss on Jameer...c'mon. They were doing fine when he came out of the game in the third quarter. He had 11 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, a steal and only one turnover.

If Hedo had had his regular game, the Magic would have been fine. He's been averaging around 20, and he had 8. The Nuggets are not a scrub team, folks.....They've got Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin. (If the Magic had a power forward who played with the energy of Kenyon, they wouldn't have these problems. And no, I don't see that as a slam on Rashard because I still believe that he is a small forward.)

By the same token, though, if you're looking at the roster for the long haul, I think you need to be careful about the moves you make this season and their long-term effect on the roster. They already made one mistake with Trevor -- though Evans has played really well the past couple games. They don't want to make another one out of desperation for that power forward that they so clearly need.

While being careful with these moves. Which PF you have in mind that best suit the Magic with what they need at that position?

[drsd]

Not sure what to think of this game. The Magic lost a game they are supposed to lose. But they played tough for three quarters. Was it fatigue? Did Melo simply turn it on? Did Hedo show up at all?

There are no moral victories for a team trying to win a division. But I won't get worked up by this loss.

[lovehoops01]

Not sure what to think of this game. The Magic lost a game they are supposed to lose. But they played tough for three quarters. Was it fatigue? Did Melo simply turn it on? Did Hedo show up at all?

There are no moral victories for a team trying to win a division. But I won't get worked up by this loss.

The end of the game was kind of weird. The game was tied with 5:22 left. Camby rebounded a missed jumper and tossed it to Anthony Carter, who threw a football pass almost the length of the court to Carmelo Anthony. Bogans fouled him, but Anthony missed the shot so it was a 2-point game. Then Carter stole the ball when Hedo made a bad pass and Carter again hurled a long pass to Anthony, who scored on the layup. Dwight was there to block it, but they called goaltending. It looked like it still was on the way up, but he blocked it into the backboard. Now it's a four-point lead. Jameer missed a 3. Iverson rebounded it and threw it way down court for Carter, who hit a 3. Seven-point game.

Rashard hits a 3 to cut it to 4. Carter missed a 3. Lewis missed a 3. Refs said Dwight fouled Iverson, who hit 1 of 2. Refs called a lane violation on Turk on one. Iverson steals a bad pass from Bogans to Dwight in the lane and takes off with it. Iverson misses. Turk rebounds, passes to Lewis, who is knocked to the ground by Martin. Lewis Misses first free throws but hits second. With 1:01 left, Carter hits another jumper to stretch the lead to 6 (108-102). On the other end, with Turk driving through the lane, refs called a jump ball and Melo won the jump. There was about 50 seconds left.

From there on, the Magic were pretty much fouling trying to get the ball back. There was one more legitimate shot after that. Refs called another lane violation on the Magic. Richie Adubato said that Anthony was leaving the lane early and the Magic defenders had to leave with him or he was beating them to the rebound, but the refs were ignoring him and calling the violation on the Magic each time. They said he did it one time after that, too, but that the refs didn't call a violation after that.

After the game, Stan sounded pretty frustrated because he said that Camby and Martin were just shoving Dwight in the back all night to get him out of position to score or rebound and the refs were letting them get away with it.

[lovehoops01]

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While being careful with these moves. Which PF you have in mind that best suit the Magic with what they need at that position?

Honestly, I don't know because I don't know who might be available. But I can tell you the skills he needs. He should be a high energy rebounder who can hit the 10- to 12-foot jumper. Of course, every team would like a player like that, and I doubt they have the players to make such a deal. Some have them, and some don't. You might be able to settle for one of those talents. There are lots of really good players who start but not as many who might be expendable. Maybe someone like Collison would work or a Millsaps. Maybe even a Kurt Thomas would work. Just another big body who could help Dwight get the rebounds, be a bailout guy if Dwight can't get off a shot and to help set picks and discourage people driving into the lane.

Also, they don't have enough right now in their second unit. It's not that the guys they had who played last year aren't playing hard. But with Hill gone, now Bogans is starting, and Battie is out from the starting lineup, and Ariza has been traded. Last year, they only played three bigs, and Dwight is the only one of them left this year with Battie out for an injury. Having Battie out hurts their team defense and allows teams to focus more on Dwight offensively and to double-team him on the rebounds.

[damo[23]]

While I fully expected to lose this game, I was disappointed to see the loss in the 4th like that.

We need to find some more and fast.

[npiper17]

Aparently we have a comedian here....

1) No one is saying anything about SVG or some mass roster change all i said was this roster needs to be changed.

2) Houston had no mcgrady, washington had no arenas, NO had no CP3 so all 3 would have been losses if they had been there most likely. Also NJ did also beat us and if portland, GS, or LA played us now they would as well.

3) Why would you use road as an excuse when we have been playing much better on the road and at home? By the looks of things our record would be far worse if we had been playing more games at home.

No ones talking about blowing anything up but a REAL PG may be a nice start

Your points are so ridiculous it's laughable. "If Portland, GS or LA played us now they'd probably beat us"...so what?? We still have a 23-15 record based on the universal truth of winning games and losing games..

And yes you are talking about blowing it up as you clearly said "time to make SOME trades" which suggests there's a large portion of this roster you are not happy with..

It seems like you've put a few people's backs up during the course of this game thread. Think you might need to watch a season or two's more games before making any more stupid statements..

[taruky1]

I'm really concerned that Dwight isn't getting enough favorable calls. Anyone else besides me get the impression that refs almost feel like they have to ration Dwight's free throw attempts? Like "gee, we can't give this guy TOO many free throws, it just wouldn't be right". I watched a little of the game a 2nd time, and I couldn't believe the crap the refs let go. And when I look at that in the context of Carmello and Iverson getting to the line OFTEN (whether deservedly or not), it just infuriates me.

[Optimus_Steel]

Sucks that Hedo couldn't get to double figures for the first time this season.

I knew that if we'd lose that Kleiza would play a big role, but I had no clue that Anthony Carter would crush us that badly.
SVG is right, guys with bad 3-point percentages kill us nightly with Melo shooting 28% and Kleiza 31%.

Again, Corbin and Washington (2/3 of the Rocket game crew) were killing us on more than a few occasions tonight and SVG had enough of their BS at the end.

Im not gonna blame the game on the refs because thats not the reason we lost. But the refs made alot of questionable calls. What really angers me is that with the game decided with a minute left, the refs decide to toy with us and make it a mockery. 2 freaking lane violations, specially when Anthony was flying over peoples backs to get rebounds? LOL WOW. They were toying with us and didnt even try to hide it. And with Stan so furious at the dubious calls, he was intentionally trying to get tossed out of the game and they couldnt even do that LOL. Those 2 refs are a joke and we might as well forfeit every game they do. Thats twice in one week they jerked us around.

[Optimus_Steel]

Here is Sta'ns quote on the refs:

"They were allowed to do a lot of pushing and shoving," he said. "When you play small like they did at times, the refs gave them a lot of liberty to do that. We had a little history with that [officiating crew]."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/o ... 4726.story

[MagicFan3]

If Corbin ever officiates another one of our games and screws up this many calls again, I have a feeling we will see SVG's first ejection as our coach.

[bucsmagicfan]

I just watched the last three minutes of the game about five times and noticed that Jameer Nelson made at least three defensive lapses which completely cost us the game. He left Anthony Carter alone twice and wasnt even double teaming anyone, he just left him wide open for no reason and then the one time he did guard him, Carter drove right past Jameer for the layup and was fouled on the play, by Jameer. I understand that Jameer is small, but these mental lapses cannot be tolerated. Jameer has got to at least try to play fundamental defense, or we need to move him out...pronto.

[mhectorgato]

We played 3.25 good quarters last night. Those were pretty good ball, and a step forward from recent play. MoE again did a nice job starting for us. Lewis and Howard played the inside out game very well.

Unfortunately the game is 4 quarters and Denver turned up their game, and ours sorta feel apart. Had we been playing a lesser opponent, then we'd still been able to win, imo.

Questions:
- Is this what we should be expecting from MoE if he continues to start?

There were reports that SVG pulled Hedo out of the 4th against LA because he was coasting due Lewis getting more attention.

Again last night we used Lewis to feed Dwight in the post, right from the start of the game. Hedo was all out of sorts last night game.

- Will Hedo find his rhythm with the increased role Lewis' has had recently?

Hedo was doing fine when Lewis had a minimized role. As SVG is starting to expand Ra$hard'$ role, it seems to be squeezing out on Hedo.

Perhaps if we can land a serviceable 4 with our expirings, we can let Hedo be our 6th man.

Maybe the Turkoflu was related to Hill and Dwight getting the focus offensively last season?

Now before thEthIEf starts to say that I'm hating on Hedo because of an off night, that's not the case. It just seems like lately - 4 or so games - there's been a concerted effort to expand Lewis' role offensively.

Maybe I'm completely wrong - it's happened before (just ask Theg ) and we can effectively balance both of our SFs....

[whocares]

1. definitely the emergence of rashard in the magic's offense is troubling hedo.
2. but this time, it is on hedo to make the best of it.
3. last night, he still got his touches, took 15 shots but unfortunately was horrendous.
4. the one lay in which he missed in the fourth quarter summarized the kind of game hedo was having.
5. he still had 7 boards (almost none of them was a lucky bounce in his way) and 5 assists.
6. so, probably, hedo will not be his sulky self from last season.
7. he is just going through a shooting slump.

[craig01]

Hedo was never in sync offensively last night.

Lewis played well offensively as did Nelson (offensively).

I didn't understand why Bogans got most of the PT in the 4th over Evans.

Evans was very solid.........

[Devin 1L]

Rashard got gypped out of an assist.

While it's nothing major, I thought I'd mention it.

I thought I had noticed it yesterday while watching live, but I wasn't positive. Upon re-watching today, it appears the statisticians did erroneously credit Hedo with an assist when it should have gone to Rashard.

It was about mid-way through the first quarter:

-Anthony Carter missed a jump shot, and Hedo got the rebound.

-Hedo hands it off to Jameer who dribbles it to about half-court then passes it to Rashard at the three point line.

-Rashard fakes the three point shot, drives to the hole and then kicks it back to Nelson at the top of the three point arc who drills the shot.

How they credited Hedo instead of Rashard, I have no idea, because it's plain as day.

[Bucs80]

I kind of noticed some dumb shots from Rashard. First he tried to pull up for a 3 in the 2nd quarter I think. and he missed it badly. Than on a fastbreak were he spinned off from a guy trying to steal the ball. Kind of a wide open lane with Najera, he shoots the 3 again. Those were 2 bad decisions.

Then on Defense. Defense never really happened. and there were too many wide-open people. Easy lay-ups were constant at the end of the game.

But the lane violations, I don't how they happend. Carmelo jumped on Dwight Howards back, and it was pretty bad call. But we didn't derserve to win that game after a poor job on the defensive end at the end of the game.

[taruky1]

Boy I think people are making much ado about Hedo's "slump". Hedo ALWAYS looks sulky when he is in a shooting slump, he gets down on himself. It has nothing to do with Rashard's expanded role or anything like that. Hedo has hit one of his mid-season outside shooting slumps which inevitably will pass. The difference is that he is still rebounding, picking up assists, and putting pressure on the defense with his drives and midrange game. And honestly, the slumps this year have been nowhere near as bad as in previous years, where he could go 8 straight games shooting 30% or less.

[icewill36]

pretenders...