Game #8 Bulls at Magic ...

[j_n]

On a side note, the bulls really arent all that talented, they are just so well coached and play with so much patience that they really maximize their abilities and play great.

Haters

How is saying that your teams' great play comes more from being smart and well coached than raw talent is considerd hating?

[singal3]

On a side note, the bulls really arent all that talented, they are just so well coached and play with so much patience that they really maximize their abilities and play great.

Haters

How is saying that your teams' great play comes more from being smart and well coached than raw talent is considerd hating?

Not to takeover your thread, but you guys play phenomenal defense. I think you make a lot of talented players look ordinary and it starts with Dwight.

[WeAreVenom]

Haters

How is saying that your teams' great play comes more from being smart and well coached than raw talent is considerd hating?

Not to takeover your thread, but you guys play phenomenal defense. I think you make a lot of talented players look ordinary and it starts with Dwight.

Thanks, man.

I've seen us let a lot of ordinary players look like superstars, too lol. We have to be one of the stranger teams in the league....

[Cliff Levingston]

Don't feel too bad about Jameer Nelson tonight. Derrick Rose is on a mission to make the all-defensive team and has been suffocating opposing point guards this season thus far.

[magicman123]

Don't feel too bad about Jameer Nelson tonight. Derrick Rose is on a mission to make the all-defensive team and has been suffocating opposing point guards this season thus far.

jameer is suffocating himself, didn't need any help from rose

[WeAreVenom]

Don't feel too bad about Jameer Nelson tonight. Derrick Rose is on a mission to make the all-defensive team and has been suffocating opposing point guards this season thus far.

jameer is suffocating himself, didn't need any help from rose

Yeah, he's been consistently bad so far........

I really hate that, because Jameer is one of my favorite players. But I really want to see this team succeed.

[Bensational]

that finals run year both Shard and Turk were huge for this team, but neither of those guys have been the same since that year.

and unfortunately Stan doesn't seem to want to hand the keys over to any of our current guys the way he did/does with Turk.

You know, maybe it is locker room politics or something, but it sure does seem that in general it is hard for stud young guys to catch the same breaks as the proven veterans on established teams like Orlando. Anderson has been our 2nd best player all year, been huge for us, but has an off night and rides the pine. Meanwhile Jrich is ridden night after failed night, and only loses minutes when Redick is having a 27 PER type of night. I think it is pretty clear that 32 year old JRich is not a core guy at this point, while Ryno and Redick are showing that they can be. Time to make the coaching and strategic switch, locker room politics be damned.

i think the biggest reason Ryno was on the pine was because of his defence and lack of guarding the post whilst Dwight was roaming. but, yeah, offensively there was probably more we could have done to get him going.

but yeah, i think it's time to hand this team over to the young guys.

[Bensational]

just watched the game back, and i've got to say, our ball movement and general team play was at an exceptional level tonight. we were constantly moving the ball and looking for the open shot - the problem is that those shots just weren't going down (hello Atlanta series...)

but, i think it all starts and ends with Dwight. the guy was phenomenal tonight. he passed all night long and didn't force anything. he was directing guys both offensively and defensively. he was the leader on the court that we've wanted him to be for a long time.

i've even got to credit JRich with making the extra effort to pass. he turned the ball over a lot in the attempt, but i think these are the beginnings of JRich reforming his game some, and establishing himself as more of a threat than just a spot shooter. it's not pretty, but hopefully he can get it a bit smoother and less forced as the season progresses.

one move i'd love to see the team incorporate is when Nelson drives and curls off Dwight by the baseline, i think someone should come to set a pick on Dwight's man to get him open in the paint. is such a simple move and teams always over commit to Nelson when he goes down there.

Ryno was struggling to keep guys off the glass, and was showing far too much on help defence. i'm not going to write him off though.

sadly, i think that tonight's team is the team we see more often than not in a 7 game series with the Bulls/Heat, and i just don't think we're good enough to get further than the 2nd round.

[Sonerb81]

I intentionally didn't log on to this forum during the Chicago game. I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want to read all the negative reviews. The truth of the matter is, this is how Magic plays against better teams that really focuses on defense.

I knew Ryno wasn't going to perform like he did in previous games. When teams don't leave space for Ryno, he is basically useless. His strength is his shooting and even though we have seen him in the paint more than usual this season, he can't do that against a team like the Bulls. It just won't happen. He won't find the empty space on the paint to do anything. They won't leave him open on the 3 point line either. So, it was obvious he was going to suck unless he went on an insane heater.

Also, Meer had no hope coming into this game either. I had zero expectations from him. He seriously had no chance against Rose.

That leaves 3 players to pull something special.

I was expecting Hedo to struggle, because I think Deng is one of the best one on one defenders in this league and I thought Hedo had no chance against him. As it turned out Hedo really struggled against Deng's very close one on one defense. He still put up 12 points on 5-11 shooting but he only had 3 assists vs 2 turnovers.

Now that leaves us with two remaining players. J. Rich and Dwight. Unfortunately Dwight had no chance to really do anything special. He battled with the Bulls defense from the beginning to the end and he was exhausted on the 4th quarter which was pretty visible.

As many people said before, Magic needs a good point guard who can create for himself and for others. D. Williams, Rondo or Nash would be perfect for this team. Meer just isn't good enough. Until that happens, Magic won't win these big games consistently.

[SubyWill]

We played like ****, we failed our first real test miserably.

[bigpimpatl]

I intentionally didn't log on to this forum during the Chicago game. I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want to read all the negative reviews. The truth of the matter is, this is how Magic plays against better teams that really focuses on defense.

I knew Ryno wasn't going to perform like he did in previous games. When teams don't leave space for Ryno, he is basically useless. His strength is his shooting and even though we have seen him in the paint more than usual this season, he can't do that against a team like the Bulls. It just won't happen. He won't find the empty space on the paint to do anything. They won't leave him open on the 3 point line either. So, it was obvious he was going to suck unless he went on an insane heater.

Also, Meer had no hope coming into this game either. I had zero expectations from him. He seriously had no chance against Rose.

That leaves 3 players to pull something special.

I was expecting Hedo to struggle, because I think Deng is one of the best one on one defenders in this league and I thought Hedo had no chance against him. As it turned out Hedo really struggled against Deng's very close one on one defense. He still put up 12 points on 5-11 shooting but he only had 3 assists vs 2 turnovers.

Now that leaves us with two remaining players. J. Rich and Dwight. Unfortunately Dwight had no chance to really do anything special. He battled with the Bulls defense from the beginning to the end and he was exhausted on the 4th quarter which was pretty visible.

As many people said before, Magic needs a good point guard who can create for himself and for others. D. Williams, Rondo or Nash would be perfect for this team. Meer just isn't good enough. Until that happens, Magic won't win these big games consistently.

It's not just jameer, but we lack a player that can get his own shot at will. If we had such a player it would make it a lot tougher for chicago to stay home on the shooters. Doesn't matter who that player is, pg or sg or sf or pf or c we need that player that can take his man off the dribble and create something.

Now you may think that PG is what needs to be replaced, but after seeing anderson and turk struggle i'd be more than willing to ship either of those for such player. Turk I can live with, because he can handle the rock. But Anderson I think should be shipped.

[aleZ]

one move i'd love to see the team incorporate is when Nelson drives and curls off Dwight by the baseline, i think someone should come to set a pick on Dwight's man to get him open in the paint. is such a simple move and teams always over commit to Nelson when he goes down there.

Stan's prolly likes more spacing for a three pointer since every other guy except howard can hit from downtown. But yeah, sometimes we should put more guys closer to the basket just to help Dwight get away from opponents. I agree on the 2nd round stuff, we're basically down to just a star player in the whole roster and a bunch of guys who can get hot or cold any given night. Hardly a title contender.

Plus: what the hell's Von Wafer doing on the bench? He was a early runner for 6th man of the year

[Moshi]

Jameer and Jason can't pass or rebound for ****... Goddamn...

[magic04life]

Chicago is simply a bad matchup for us. Plain and simple.

They always seem to get a hundred offensive rebbounds when they play us and they did so last night too. Our defense was doing a good job at initially stopping their offense, but when Boozer Noah consistently gather the offensive board and lay it in the basket, those are back-breakers.

Have to forget about it though. We have a tough west coast trip now and if the players dwell on this loss, they could be below .500 coming out of this trip. And if we get to the point where we're below .500, the Dwight circus is going to start up again.

[thelead]

Chicago is simply a bad matchup for us. Plain and simple.

They always seem to get a hundred offensive rebbounds when they play us and they did so last night too. Our defense was doing a good job at initially stopping their offense, but when Boozer Noah consistently gather the offensive board and lay it in the basket, those are back-breakers.

Have to forget about it though. We have a tough west coast trip now and if the players dwell on this loss, they could be below .500 coming out of this trip. And if we get to the point where we're below .500, the Dwight circus is going to start up again.

All of the great teams are "bad matchups" for us

[Optimus_Steel]

I now believe that Jameer needs to be traded. We just arent going anywhere with him being our starting PG. His weaknesses are now overcoming his strenghts.

[MixTKO]

Chicago is simply a bad matchup for us. Plain and simple.

They always seem to get a hundred offensive rebbounds when they play us and they did so last night too. Our defense was doing a good job at initially stopping their offense, but when Boozer Noah consistently gather the offensive board and lay it in the basket, those are back-breakers.

Have to forget about it though. We have a tough west coast trip now and if the players dwell on this loss, they could be below .500 coming out of this trip. And if we get to the point where we're below .500, the Dwight circus is going to start up again.

All of the great teams are "bad matchups" for us

Orlando just relies to much on the 3-pt shot to be consistently great. When they're falling the Magic look elite, when they aren't...not so good. Dwight and his D prowess keeps you in most games every night, just gotta get a new offensive system IMO.

[SolidSnake008]

Stan will never change his system because he believes it works.....i mean i remember when Dallas won the championship Stan was on a local radio show and he actually said something along the lines of..."i thought people said shooting teams can't win" i was like really stan? Like Dallas winning the Championship gives your system any credence

[JNelson43]

I want to face a couple "near the top" teams instead of "at the top" teams. I know we aren't better than the Bulls right now, even if it feels like we should be able to compete. I think that game yesterday was actually pretty winnable, yeah great defenses make guys miss shots but Anderson still had an uncharacteristically bad game, perimeter D is usually bad but not always this bad, etc. A few more things clicking and it could have been a different story.

I want to test this team against, oh, Lakers as they're playing now (then we would get the Bynum vs. Dwight match-up) or against a bottom four playoff seed team in the East (Pacers or something?). Heck I'd even take the Knicks, see how we do against them.

[rcklsscognition]

Anyone watch Stan's postgame? He said for the last 3 years, the Magic have always had a starter that didn't need a shot to be productive and they don't think they have that guy now. He says they're going to think about making a change to the rotation to bring a new starter in from the bench and mentioned Davis. Ryan may lose his starting position in the coming days/weeks.