Magic ready to surge (Schedule Analysis)

[Happyfoosball]

I said the Magic would win 55 to 60 games this year. They will win 50 and they have a shot at winning 54 to 55 with the way the schedule looks.

Meh. I hope so. The team is just so hot/cold. I'm excited to see what trade might to through.

[DiplomaticMagic]

We have to overcome one thing we didn't do last year. Beat the teams we should beat.

[KingRobb02]

-= original quote snipped =-
Dallas only made it because the Spurs were banged up. Any team that can play defense will beat Dallas in a series. It's always been that way. And if Denver were such a great defensive team then how come they needed 120+ to beat Boston? You can throw stats out the window because they can be skewed 10x over. Denver's not a good defensive team, they are not tough at all. They won't go past the second round. Dallas and the Nuggets, Rockets too are pretenders. The West will come down to the Spurs and the Lakers.

And btw, there are no elite teams out west right now. Just a lot of paridy and a lot of really good teams. For a team to become elite they have to step out and seperate themselves from the rest of their conference like Detriot and Boston have.

Don't use the banged up excuse because, by April, every team is banged up. No one told the Spurs to build their team around older guys so they would be fatigued in the post season. The Mavs beat them fair and square, mainly because Dirk was unstaoppable for the first 3 rounds. If Dirk plays like that again, there is no way to guard him and I would favor them to make the finals again, no matter who they have to play.

The Nuggets defensive rating is based on the fact that they don't give up very many points per posession. The problem is that they play at such a fast pace that they have a lot of posessions per game. Looking only at point allowed per game doesn't account for the fact that if a team uses 20 seconds to work it inside for a shot, that there will be less total shots, and an overall low scoring game. Watch the Nuggets play and you will see that they play good interior defense and do a good job denying the ball on the wings. Camby didn't win defensive player of the year on accident.

Why do you doubt the Rockets? Their offense is fluid and they play good defense, plus they are deep. The team I would doubt is the Spurs, who look pretty old outside of the big three. Last year may have been their last run.

[MagicStarwipe]

27 games where the schedule calms down a bit. All in all, we've had a pretty damn tough schedule this season.