Game Thread 24: Orlando Magic (10-13) @ Charlotte Hornets (13-9) 12/9 7PM ET

[OrlandO]

Orlando is 50-43 all-time vs. Charlotte (29-18 at home, 21-25 on the road), including 1-3 last season. Orlando is 5-3 vs. Charlotte all-time during the playoffs (2002 First Round, 1-3; 2010 First Round, 4-0). The Magic have lost five of the last six regular season meetings with the Hornets and 10 of the last 15 overall. Orlando has lost six of the last eight meetings at home, but split the last eight trips to Charlotte. D.J. Augustin was originally drafted in the first round (ninth overall) of the 2008 NBA Draft by Charlotte and played in 282 games during his first four NBA seasons with Charlotte (2008-12). Bismack Biyombo appeared in 284 during his first four NBA seasons with Charlotte (2011-15).

This season, the Magic will play 15 back-to-back contests (eight away/away, one home/away and six away/home). The Magic are 3-5 this season in back-to-back sets (2-2 in first game; 1-3 in second game). The Magic begin a back-to-back tonight (Dec. 9) @ Charlotte and tomorrow (Dec. 10) vs. Denver. Orlando played 19 back-to-backs last season and finished 16-22 in those outings (10-9 during the first game and 6-13 in the second game).

BEST ALL-TIME SCORING PERFORMANCE VS. HORNETS: 45 pts., Dwight Howard (@ Orlando, 2-17-09)
BEST ALL-TIME SCORING PERFORMANCE VS. MAGIC: 42 pts., Kemba Walker (@ Charlotte, 12-27-14)

INJURY REPORT

Nikola Vucevic – right corneal abrasion, QUESTIONABLE

Brian K. Schmitz
Magic PF Serge Ibaka said Friday he feels just as confident, if not more, about staying with Magic. He can be a FA this summer.

The Orlando Magic are currently 6-6 on the road this season. They went 12-29 on the road in 2015-16, the second straight
season with that road mark.

UNDEFEATED ON THE ROAD WITH MEEKS

THIS DATE IN MAGIC HISTORY...
December 9, 2011 – The Orlando Magic waived guard Gilbert Arenas and designated him as the team’s amnesty player, President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Otis Smith announced. Orlando also signed rookie forward Justin Harper and rookie guard DeAndre Liggins, as well as free agent guards Larry Hughes and Gabe Pruitt.

December 9 2008 – With the Magic down by two with 0.3 seconds left, Hedo Turkoglu hit the game-winning three-pointer, giving the Magic a 109-108 victory on the road against Portland. Rashard Lewis led the Magic 27 points and nine rebounds.

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IS MARIO READY TO PLAY TODAY?

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[OrlandO]

Vuc questionable with eye injury...... tough luck against a healthy hornets team. Ibaka and Biz going to have to step up even more if vuc can't play.

[Patrick1978]

Wuth vucevic probably put Vogel has the possibility to play small ball with gordon and ibaka.
Give hezonja a chance

[drsd]

Vuc questionable with eye injury...... tough luck against a healthy hornets team. Ibaka and Biz going to have to step up even more if vuc can't play.

The key for Orlando is containment of the Hornets' guards. And the Magic must get SF scoring (as they have in all recent wins).


..

[pepe1991]

Legit question. How are Hornets this good? They have no centers whatsoever . Kaminsky is PF with no footspeed for C, Hibbert is worthless, and yet Hornets are elite defensive team, and above all that Nick Batum,despite nice overall numbers ( PPG,APG,RPG ) shoots 38% FG, 31% for 3 . So how da hell are they winning games? I get that Kemba is allstar and one of most underrated players in NBA but he is pretty much only effective scorer on a team. Kaminsky is 3rd by scoring on a team, 10,9 ppg on 40% FG.

[Xatticus]

Legit question. How are Hornets this good? They have no centers whatsoever . Kaminsky is PF with no footspeed for C, Hibbert is worthless, and yet Hornets are elite defensive team, and above all that Nick Batum,despite nice overall numbers ( PPG,APG,RPG ) shoots 38% FG, 31% for 3 . So how da hell are they winning games? I get that Kemba is allstar and one of most underrated players in NBA but he is pretty much only effective scorer on a team. Kaminsky is 3rd by scoring on a team, 10,9 ppg on 40% FG.

Steve Clifford teams don't give up easy points. They don't give up second chance points and they don't commit turnovers. They forego offensive rebounding to shut down the transition game. It's ugly old school basketball.

I don't agree that they lack centers though. Hibbert never was good on the offensive end, but he is a solid interior defender. Zeller and MKG are really good defenders as well. Still, I think they'd struggle to score enough to win too often without Kemba Walker.

[pepe1991]

Legit question. How are Hornets this good? They have no centers whatsoever . Kaminsky is PF with no footspeed for C, Hibbert is worthless, and yet Hornets are elite defensive team, and above all that Nick Batum,despite nice overall numbers ( PPG,APG,RPG ) shoots 38% FG, 31% for 3 . So how da hell are they winning games? I get that Kemba is allstar and one of most underrated players in NBA but he is pretty much only effective scorer on a team. Kaminsky is 3rd by scoring on a team, 10,9 ppg on 40% FG.

Steve Clifford teams don't give up easy points. They don't give up second chance points and they don't commit turnovers. They forego offensive rebounding to shut down the transition game. It's ugly old school basketball.

I don't agree that they lack centers though. Hibbert never was good on the offensive end, but he is a solid interior defender. Zeller and MKG are really good defenders as well. Still, I think they'd struggle to score enough to win too often without Kemba Walker.

Yea Cody is only good Zeller at basketball lol. But i thought he plays PF . By bb reference he plays 58% at C , so good point there.
And yea, MKG and Batum are great man to man defenders

[LamarMatic7]

Legit question. How are Hornets this good? They have no centers whatsoever . Kaminsky is PF with no footspeed for C, Hibbert is worthless, and yet Hornets are elite defensive team, and above all that Nick Batum,despite nice overall numbers ( PPG,APG,RPG ) shoots 38% FG, 31% for 3 . So how da hell are they winning games? I get that Kemba is allstar and one of most underrated players in NBA but he is pretty much only effective scorer on a team. Kaminsky is 3rd by scoring on a team, 10,9 ppg on 40% FG.

Steve Clifford teams don't give up easy points. They don't give up second chance points and they don't commit turnovers. They forego offensive rebounding to shut down the transition game. It's ugly old school basketball.

I don't agree that they lack centers though. Hibbert never was good on the offensive end, but he is a solid interior defender. Zeller and MKG are really good defenders as well. Still, I think they'd struggle to score enough to win too often without Kemba Walker.

Yea Cody is only good Zeller at basketball lol. But i thought he plays PF . By bb reference he plays 58% at C , so good point there.
And yea, MKG and Batum are great man to man defenders

by this point Cody's pretty much played 100% of his time at C since the 2015-16 season started. you'd be hard pressed to find any minutes he's logged at PF.

[The Real Dalic]

I have nothing but love for the Hornets and have been a big fan of them since they came back as the Bobcats, but I really hope we beat this team tonight. We need to get back to our winning ways.

[woosah]

Back to the defense.
Kemba always goes off on us but i hope we find a way to score tonight and get this dub.

[Blue_and_Whte]

We're going to have to play some STOUT defense tonight because we aren't going to score many points imo, not against a good defensive team having one scorer available. Kemba is going to blow up regardless of whos guarding him but I think if we contain the rest of the players then we can survive a big game from Walker similar to the Wizards game.

This might end up being a boring low scoring game especially since they don't give up much in transition so even if do get a block they're down court and set in their defense really quickly.

[OrlandO]

Brian K. Schmitz ‏@MagicInsider 12m12 minutes ago
Magic PF Serge Ibaka said Friday he feels just as confident, if not more, about staying with Magic. He can be a FA this summer.

more on vuc's eye

Brian K. Schmitz ‏@MagicInsider 18m18 minutes ago
Magic coach Frank Vogel said C Nik Vucevic was questionable tonight vs. CHAR. Vooch, hit in eye area Wednesday night vs. BOS, sounded like he was going to play barring any setback.

[OrlandO]

Vogel was asked about possibly sending Mario to the d-league just to get some playing time...

Yeah, we've thought about it. We'll continue to keep an eye on where his role is with this team. It's not good for anybody to stay out of the rotation for a long time when we have the d-league available. Just something that we've talked about, but right now we want him with us.

[JBSouthpaw]

Vogel was asked about possibly sending Mario to the d-league just to get some playing time...

Yeah, we've thought about it. We'll continue to keep an eye on where his role is with this team. It's not good for anybody to stay out of the rotation for a long time when we have the d-league available. Just something that we've talked about, but right now we want him with us.

I was glad to finally hear something on this topic.
I think everyone wants Mario to be a success, just frustrated on how it,s going.

[j-ragg]

Mario and Zim would be Kobe and Shaq in the DLeague.

[asianguy]

Mario and Zim would be Kobe and Shaq in the DLeague.

Yes. Please send Mario to dleague, he needs to realize his place on the team is not guaranteed, and he also can gain some confidence back by getting 30+pts a game against lesser competition.

[Xatticus]

Mario and Zim would be Kobe and Shaq in the DLeague.

Yes. Please send Mario to dleague, he needs to realize his place on the team is not guaranteed, and he also can gain some confidence back by getting 30+pts a game against lesser competition.

The D-League is such a poor level of competition though. I'd rather see a more progressive loan system implemented akin to soccer. Teams already draft and stash players as potential long-term assets while they continue their development in Europe. I think we already have a problem where many players enter the draft when it would obviously be significantly better for their development if they stayed in college. The NBA needs a more productive solution than the D-League to address this.

[Tayswagzzz]

Vogel was asked about possibly sending Mario to the d-league just to get some playing time...

Yeah, we've thought about it. We'll continue to keep an eye on where his role is with this team. It's not good for anybody to stay out of the rotation for a long time when we have the d-league available. Just something that we've talked about, but right now we want him with us.

They want him with them for NBA knowledge? Cause he doesn't log any NBA play time unless it's garbage minutes now. I'm guessing he's just absorbing knowledge from the coaches & participation in practice, and that's what they want?

Unless Vogel is going to give him real rotational minutes, I'd rather he just play in D-League so he get's actual play time than whatever kind of idea they have for him right now.

[OrlandO]

Vogel was asked about possibly sending Mario to the d-league just to get some playing time...

Yeah, we've thought about it. We'll continue to keep an eye on where his role is with this team. It's not good for anybody to stay out of the rotation for a long time when we have the d-league available. Just something that we've talked about, but right now we want him with us.

They want him with them for NBA knowledge? Cause he doesn't log any NBA play time unless it's garbage minutes now. I'm guessing he's just absorbing knowledge from the coaches & participation in practice, and that's what they want?

Unless Vogel is going to give him real rotational minutes, I'd rather he just play in D-League so he get's actual play time than whatever kind of idea they have for him right now.

I'd rather have Mario working with our coaches and practicing against NBA players in Vogel's system than be sent to the d-league to chuck up shots in an amateur league.

[Nemesis21]

Great thread! Go Magic! Don't let Kemba go off for 40+