Game Thread: Orlando Magic @ Portland Trail Blazers, 12/9 10:00pm

[ClaytonMagic 0]

NONE OF THE SPURS MAVS GAMES HIGHLIGHTS WERE ON SPORTSCENTER EITHER, WE WERE TO LATE TO BE ON THE HIGHLIGHT REEL!

[Osprey 199]

No one talking about our game. LOL. Have to check in again at 2 on NBA GameNight.

[Skywise316 211]

I don't have an intro tonight, I'm far too giddy for out-of-the-box thought.

 

Al Pacino: "Huzzah~!"

 

That'll work, sir, thank you. Get ready for some incredible numbers.

 

Stock In The Clouds:

 

He do. He did. Hedo Turkoglu. (This may be the highest bounceback from rock bottom to, well, his head in the clouds. Maybe the Clippers was just about shaking all the turkaflu from his system?

 

8 of 16 shooting overall, 2 of 5 from Three Land, 6 of 6 from the charity stripe (Welcome back aggression!). That totals for 24 points, 2 boards, 5 assists and only 1 turnover. And of course the last three points were Boston revisited. Same run up to the top of the key, almost the exact same spot, same spread out legs on the shot. Only difference was there was no stepback and the bank was open.

 

Mr. 4th quarter blazed an all-star quality trail tonight! Another youtube goes into the Turkish collection.)

 

Stock Up:

 

Turnovers. (The Magic had only 7 turnovers! That could be a new season low, and they only had one turnover in the second half. For this team that is absolutely stunning.)

 

Rashard Lewis. (9 of 16, 6 of 9 from Three Land, 3 for 3 from the line. That makes 27 points to lead the Magic. 9 huge rebounds, a steal, and 4 assists. Good number of assists for Sweet Lew. It just seemed like EVERY three pointer he hit was huge. It was either part of a Magic run, halted a Portland run, or I dunno... brought the Magic to within two points and set up "The Bank.")

 

Courtney Lee + Keith Bogans = Defense. (You know before Brandon Roy lost his mind in the last five minutes, he wasn't shooting the ball very well all night. Rudy Fernandez didn't either, 3 for 9. Sergio Rodriguez, 3 for 9. This may of been the best combined defense of the season for the Bogans-Lee combo. Also Lee continued to shoot the ball well, 3 for 5. And even though Bogans shot 2 for 8, had 5 points, 4 assists, and rebound... not only are the 4 assists nyce, his last assist and last rebound were the two most important of their kind in the game. Because they set up Rashard Lewis for his last run-behind-the-line three pointer.)

 

Jameer Nelson. (He kept us hanging around, hanging around, hanging around in the 4th quarter. 8 of 16 shooting, 4 of 6 from Three for 21 points. 4 boards, 6 assists against only 1 turnover, and 3 steals! When's the last time Jameer's had a line like that?? In the playoffs against Toronto, maybe. He also had the best plus/minus on the Magic tonight with +11.)

 

Three Point Shooting. (14 of 27 for 52 percent! Lights out.)

 

Three Point Defense. (5 of 19 for only 26.3 percent. Even Portland's not immune to it.)

 

Assists. (26. It's easy to forget because we were dazzled by Portland's world class ball movement, but ours wasn't too shabby either.)

 

Field Goal Shooting. (We shot 50.6% from the floor. I'm not sure if we shot 44 or 48 percent against the Clips, but either way this is a Stock Up.)

 

Dwight Howard. (He only had 14 points, 9 boards, a steal, an assist, and no blocks.

 

You may be surprised by this, but I don't care about those stats on this night. Big props to him for staying in the game even though SVG said it hurt for him to raise his hands over his head and he didn't want to jump. There's maybe ten to fifteen other players in the league that wouldn't of left the game for good.

 

Also for the cherry on top, at one point his presence sent Portland into a Zone defense, which the Magic promptly lit up after a few empty possessions while they adjusted.)

 

Stan Van Gundy. (Surprise #2. I still think Nat McMillian was outcoaching Stan Van Gundy for a good three quarters of this game. Sitting Jameer for longer than usual in the fourth quarter, not calling timeouts when Portland and their crowd were clearly heating up, and so on and so forth.

 

Then McMillian went zone and actually stuck with it, and then with a couple of minutes to Stan Van Gundy remembered his own strategy against Dwayne Wade last year before using it on Brandon Roy! Genius! The trap confused and confounded Portland, and it makes me wonder why Houston didn't do it to Portland when Roy took out their hearts and stomped on them with a game winner of his own.

 

Point being, SVG slipped up here and there but made the big coaching move of the night when it counted. See, I don't only give SVG Stock Downs... er, any more.)

 

Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. (Well played, sirs. And Brandon, thanks for the 30-9-5, good shooting, and 2 blocks for my fantasy team!)

 

Stock In The Middle:

 

Anthony Johnson. (He provided no offense.. didn't even take any shots. But what he did he did well, which was get 3 assists and have only one turnover.)

 

Stock Down:

 

Team Rebounding. (The Magic got outrebounded 44 to 29. Even with a hurting Dwight, that's far too much of a difference in boards.)

 

Greg Oden. (Teh suck~!)

 

Detroit Pistons. (Also, teh suck~!)

 

There ya go! Somehow the Magic are 2-0 on the road trip, 17-5 for the season, and manage to not only pick up a game on Detroit, but more importantly right now, pick up a game on ATL who also lost. So the Magic now lead ATL by a full 4 games in the Southeast Division. Strangely enough they now lead the idle New Jersey Nets by 3.5 games for 3rd in the East. Who woulda thunk that?

 

Two days off for Dwight and his hurting love handle, hopefully he'll be at least close to full strength against Phoenix.

 

So until Friday night....

 

Good night and good luck.

[KillingInTheNameOf 63]

I would like to recommend four nominees for Stock Up in this game.

 

1) Mickael Pietrus. He didn't play, but his job security just went through the roof. This game was a clear indication of why we signed & need this guy.

 

2) Trade. During the regular season, AJ has clearly demonstrated that he is a valuable 10th-12th men, but a huge liability as the 6th-9th man vs. playoff caliber teams. Note to Otis Smith, there was a good reason every individual who follows basketball on this planet expected the Magic to acquire a power forward this past offseason.

 

3) RaShedo Turkolewis, nuff said.

 

4) Crazy game winning shots. The beauty of them is that they only remember the winners!

[KillingInTheNameOf 63]

quote:

Courtney Lee + Keith Bogans = Defense. (You know before Brandon Roy lost his mind in the last five minutes, he wasn't shooting the ball very well all night. Rudy Fernandez didn't either, 3 for 9. Sergio Rodriguez, 3 for 9. This may of been the best combined defense of the season for the Bogans-Lee combo. Also Lee continued to shoot the ball well, 3 for 5. And even though Bogans shot 2 for 8, had 5 points, 4 assists, and rebound... not only are the 4 assists nyce, his last assist and last rebound were the two most important of their kind in the game. Because they set up Rashard Lewis for his last run-behind-the-line three pointer.)

 

I think you actually have to give Hedo a lot of credit for containing Rudy in the first half. He lost Lee on 4 straight possessions. Then Hedo was put on him & he actually did a solid job.

 

I would also be remise if I didn't point out that Sergio & Roy ate us alive by breaking down the D all night.

[Skywise316 211]

They're covering the Magic Game after the commercial on ESPN, NBA Fastbreak (Tim Legler).

 

For anyone who's still awake.

[ManuGinobili 0]

Sky, I agree with most of your post as usual, but there are 2 things I did not see like you.

 

1- If Hedo got a Stock in the Clouds, Rashard deserves, at least, the same, with an awesome game. He hit 3 after 3 after 3 to bring us back from big deficits. He was the only one being aggresive when Portland was leading by 8 at halfpoint in the 4th, even DUNKING (?) it after a nice dish by Dwight. Also 9 rebounds, he is showing that as a 4, he is more and more dangerous adapting to this new position for him.

 

2- I dont think Bogans and Lee

[TrueMagicFan07 675]

ESPN is going to show the winning shot by Hedo in a few minutes (after the commercials).

[no_ma'am 0]

before completely condemning lee and bogan's d, you should go look at Roy's shot chart. The guy was drilling jumpers all night. You can't really defend that.

[ManuGinobili 0]

And just to make a bigger point, recap from ESPN:

 

"It appeared Portland was on its way to its eighth win in nine games, as the Blazers led by eight points on several occasions during the fourth quarter, including 108-100 on LaMarcus Aldridge's 19-foot jumper with 2:21 left.

 

Portland didn't score again, as Orlando changed its defensive strategy on Brandon Roy, who scored a season-high 30 points. The Magic decided to trap Roy each time he touched the ball down the stretch. The defensive ploy worked, as the Blazers went 0-for-4 with two turnovers during the final two minutes.

 

"We couldn't stop him, so we wanted to make someone else beat us," Lewis said."

[Skywise316 211]

quote:

Originally posted by ManuGinobili:

1- If Hedo got a Stock in the Clouds, Rashard deserves, at least, the same, with an awesome game. He hit 3 after 3 after 3 to bring us back from big deficits. He was the only one being aggresive when Portland was leading by 8 at halfpoint in the 4th, even DUNKING (?) it after a nice dish by Dwight. Also 9 rebounds, he is showing that as a 4, he is more and more dangerous adapting to this new position for him.

 

I think Rashard's been playing well, and then played great tonight. A jump in Stock yes, but not a big jump. Or at least not a monstrous jump. Hedo has been TERRIBLE lately, especially Monday night against the Clips. He just literally turned his game on its head overnight to 2007 quality.

 

I'm not saying Hedo had a better game tonight than Rashard, I think they were pretty close, but what I'm saying is this may be the biggest turn around in stock from one game to the next of this early season for a player or category.

[no_ma'am 0]

they just showed a replay on espn...it looks like that shot from portland was released before the shot clock buzzer. Probably caught a break there.

 

now follow me here...it gets complicated. If you're a believer in karma, you'll like this.

 

Ok, last year we had a game against houston where foyle apparently got a tip in at the buzzer that would have tied the game and it wasn't counted...end result: we lost

 

next, at the beginning of this season, houston was playing portland and houston got the benefit of a poor call that allowed yao to hit a ft to but them up by one. Roy came down to the other end of the floor and drilled a ridiculous fadeaway 35 footer for the win. Replays show the clock wasn't started right away and roy probably wouldn't have gotten it off in time if it had been...end result: houston loses

 

now tonight, the refs mess up and it works against portland...they lose.

 

unfortunately for us, we have hit a lot of game winners and probably have our fair share of negative karma coming our way. That is...if you believe in karma

 

food for thought.