JJZFL

Phenomenal game yesterday, especially after the slow start which could have demoralized them but didn’t. Lots of credit to Mosley for getting them to play with the necessary energy and focus after the first quarter. Definitely one of the top five high points in my long suffering fan relationship with the Magic. Felt great after watching that game.

Don’t look now, but for some reason we’re favored by 6 1/2 points.

Yes I agree with what everyone is saying about our exceeding expectations this season. That being said, a potential playoff run is a terrible thing to waste. There’s never any guarantee you get back there next year. It’s why, if we meekly lose in the first round or don’t even make the playoffs, I’ll consider this an opportunity that was missed. We had a good idea what we needed at the trade deadline, and didn’t do anything to improve.

Disappointing but not surprising. At this point it seems we can only beat bad teams. It is possible that the game Sunday won’t matter for Milwaukee. If that happens they might rest everyone so we get the win.

This could get ugly very quickly

Unfortunately Embiid is playing also. Teams going all out on this one.

JJ Redick wasn’t a great one on one player either but he got more that 3 shots per game. My point is that we need team offense to make everyone better, not give it to Franz/Paulo and have everyone else standing around watching. Adding more shooters to the roster won’t help if we can’t figure out ways to get them decent looks. I appreciate the conversation also. We agree about 99% of the time but it probably makes for more interesting discussion when we don’t. We are 7-8 point underdogs for tonight. It’s hard to see how we win this game the way we’ve been playing lately, but stranger things have certainly happened.

This is one of your rare posts that I disagree with. I pointed out recently how Harris, during one of our losses, despite starting and playing 30 minutes, only got 3 shots the whole game (and hit two of them, both three pointers). Giving the ball to Paulo at the top of the key and hoping he can ISO against all five of the other team is not a winning strategy. Great players make the other players on their teams better, not worse. Our only chance is to play better team basketball and run plays to open players up for shots. The idea that everyone else besides Paulo sucks and therefore he has to have the ball in his hands all the time doesn’t fly from my standpoint. I see it as an excuse to explain bad offensive execution. Add: by the way, when you look at our last three losses, Paulo had the worst +\- of anyone on our team for two of the three (-19, -20). So it’s not exactly like he’s making us way better when he’s out there.

And even worse they were mostly unforced. Passing to someone’s back. Passing to where you thought there was a chance someone might be. Dribbling into traffic. It’s almost like we were trying to turn the ball over.

It really looks like he tenses up in games and tries to guide the ball instead of taking a natural shot.

Truly have no idea at all what to expect tonight. We could win by 20 or get blown out. Or maybe it will be close. Absolutely no idea at all.

Probably because of that, we are actually favored by 2 against Milwaukee even though we’re on the road

Agree with both of you, and would have given +1's but it won't let me for some reason (I haven't used any recently so it must be a glitch). I would add my above points about Harris to CT's post, I think it all fits together.

In fairness to Harris, he only took 3 shots last night and made 2 of them, and they were both 3 point shots. It goes back to a number of posts I made during the game. We are not moving the ball sufficiently. Why is arguably our best 3 point shooter, who is starting, only getting 3 shots the whole game (he played over 30 minutes)?? Do we not have any schemes designed to get him some shots? Way too many Iso's and overdribbling. It's kind of the same story over and over again, at least against teams that can play defense.

He’s just forcing everything tonight. He looks great when he doesn’t do that.

Boy we look awful tonight. Especially first unit

Way too much dribbling from Paulo

Just forced three or four possessions in a row. Anthony, Isaac, and Ingles all took difficult shots instead of moving the ball. When we stop sharing it, we aren’t very good. Actually misstated the above. Isaac was trying to go one on one, over dribbled, and lost it without getting a shot.

Much much better teamwork with second unit. Other than one force by Cole, all good. Continue with less dribbling and more passing please, including first unit who were forcing everything.

Paulo trying to do way too much. At times determined to score even if he’s one vs five or taking a low percentage three.

It’s on. I’m watching it.

Why do you think the higher paid players make more money?

That’s kind of a silly argument. Since they’re not infallible, they shouldn’t try to figure out who gives them the best chance to win? Should they just pick the players at random, maybe have a lottery or something?

Salaries players get are generally directly related to what they’ve shown they can do in the NBA. It’s why Paulo is going to be paid a lot more than Goga when his rookie contract expires. It’s not surprising that playing time is allocated to the best players. Queen got some meaningful playing time with us when we had injuries, and while he held his own, he didn’t look clearly better than anyone else we had out there.

Again we completely stop moving the ball in any kind of pressure situation.