CTMagicUK

Thread for all discussions on the playoffs and the play-ins across the league now the regular season is over. What are people's predictions? The West looks an absolute bloodbath. I'm thinking a Nuggets/Clippers WCF and a Nuggets/Celtics finals. Struggling to pick the other East finalist, Philly maybe?

You negate all of JIs help defensive impact by having him guard someone he can't help off of.

Very true. Though I think the Cavs would cross match and have Strus guard Isaac and keep Mobley on Paolo. Presents a decent opportunity for Isaac to get on the offensive glass but I think the Cavs would feel ok with that given they'd have Allen + Mobley down there to contest boards. Otherwise can't imagine the Cavs are concerned about Isaac post ups or anything.

I've thought a lot about that Suggs/Franz/Paolo/Isaac/WCJ lineup to be the starters but my main concerns are: Can Franz guard one of Garland or Mitchell? Will Strus just kill us because Paolo can't chase him around screens?

Jalen Suggs is currently on the injury report as day to day.

Seeing a lot of people (brain dead morons) with "Paolo exposed"/"just Julius Randle"/"fake all star" takes on social media and from some terrible talking heads in podcasts and stuff. Need a win and huge games from him in games 3 and 4 because I cant bare a whole summer of these takes.

I'd hope Paolo and Franz can be part of the solution too. Otherwise chances are they can't be successful together long term without a high level shooter at the 5 which is a difficult archetype to find given the defensive responsibility of the position.

D'Angelo Russell hit 7 3s in game 2. I'm not even a fan of his really. But at this point we're so unbelievably desperate for some shot making I'll be thoroughly campaigning for us to go after him or anyone like him. Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, the corpse of Klay Thompson, if you can shoot the ball at a high level we should be trying to trade for or sign you this off-season.

Honestly, just start Anthony Black. Like what's the worst that can happen? If he scores 2 points on 1/7 shooting he'd be having a better series than half of our roster and he'd play a damn sight better defense than half the roster too.

Jamal Murray is that dude.

Can't even win a coin flip at the minute.

Disclaimer: this is not a reflection of where we are as a team or me giving up on the season or anything like that I just like talking about draft prospects. NCAA season has started so thought we could start to use this. Because I expected us to be better this year I haven't gotten a jump on draft prospects as early as I usually would. Learning as I go but trying not to focus in on the top guys. Last few years we've been looking at top draft guys. Top 5, top 10 etc. Have a feeling we'll be more in that 14-20 range this coming year (or maybe we even trade the pick? Who knows?) Looking in that range I'm really looking at guys who fit. For me guys that fit this team (i.e. fit with Paolo and Franz) are: big guard or wing shooters, stretch bigs or mobile rim protecting bigs. Jakobe Walter, freshman from Baylor, caught my eye yesterday: https://youtu.be/3VNZPAdy3ZU?si=nTaOpYONElbvyqP9 Clearly not a shot creator but he looks to have incredible touch and can shoot the 3 off of movement. Givony has him at #16 at ESPN early on. Another guy I like (don't have any highlights from this year yet) is Trevon Brazile, stood out to me at times watching AB film last season at Arkansas but only played a handful of games due to injury. 6'10, super athlete, mobile on defense and his 3 point jumper looks good. (He's currently at #25 on ESPN) But there are loads of other guys I'm interested in seeing, some guys we shouldn't be in a position to draft and some we might be, playing in College, overseas and for G League Ignite.

Can't shoot. Dumb turnovers. Getting out rebounded. Paolo's defense is bad. That's basically the story of the first two games. There was actually a group of people on this board who did a victory lap when we didn't make a trade at the deadline and kept Markelle Fultz. How's that working out for us? Maybe we make it a series at home but I've already got one eye on the off season. This is a big one. Biggest in some time.

I believe game 1 was literally the worst half court offensive performance the Magic have had all season. Surely we'll get some regression to the mean tonight? Just average shooting from Harris, Suggs, Cole etc and we give ourselves a chance.

Thanks TMF! Let's say this is the Game 2 thread, I'd really like us to get separate threads for each game so I'll make make shift ones for games 3+ if needs be. They won't have all the pics and stuff though unfortunately.

If none of the guards are going to hit shots honestly I'd be interested in seeing Anthony Black get minutes. I doubt we'd do it but he literally cannot be worse as a shooter than what we got game 1.

It was a fine pass to Jalen Suggs, why JI got involved I don't know. .

Y'all wanting Gary Harris out are insane. For who? There are two sides of the ball and nobody on that bench can guard Donovan Mitchell.

Gary Harris make a jumper challenge.

When Jalen plays with this fire is when he gets cooking. We're going to need him in this series.

We're playing like ass offensively though.

Honestly whatever happens now this season has been a success. I view this series as a chance to really expose every flaw we have for the off-season.

This defense isn't going to cut it.

This teams playing terribly since the Fultz flagrant. Game is at risk of getting away from us.

That's a flagrant foul? Soft.