Game Thread: Magic v Bobcats Game 3 - 4/24 - First Round

[deadman54 7]

i did say charlotte by 3 in this game and they did just blow a good chance to get this so ill have to change my prediction from orlando in 5 to orlando sweep in 4.

[KillingInTheNameOf 63]

quote:

Originally posted by Osprey23:

quote:

Originally posted by KillingInTheNameOf:

THE GOOD

 

A win is a win is a win. 3-0; team deserves credit for grinding out a W in a very ugly game played at Charlottes pace.

 

Jameer Nelson...Great all-around game!

 

Rebounding...To limit Charlotte to 6 off rebs with Dwight playing limited mins is a shock & prob the key to this victory.

 

Defense...Outstanding and suffocating at times.

 

Passing...A conscience effort was made to feed Dwight the ball deep in the paint for the first time I can remember in a long time. Naturally, some of the passes were terrible, but this has to continue.

 

THE BAD

 

Vince Carter, Mickeal Pietrus, Ryan Anderson, & Jason Williams were down right useless today.

 

Missed layups...How many chippies can a team miss?

 

JJ Redick...JJ was on his way to playing a brilliant game until he let 2 non calls completely take him out of the game. JJ is too mentally tough for that!

 

THE UGLY

 

Michael Jordan...Has just sunk to Mark Cuban territory as the most annoying NBA owner. Go get a reality TV show if you miss the spot light this much.

 

Dwight Howard...The refs called the play against Dwight super tight today & he still picked up stupid foul after stupid foul while compounding that w/a technical.

 

As bad as that was, watching him complain about a clean block, get beat down the floor by Nzar Muhammad, & as a result surrender a layup in a close game with 6 minutes left is a level of immaturity I expect out of Vernon Maxwell, not D12.

 

That was an incredibly self-destructive performance by Dwight, credit to Jameer for leading the team, and gutting out a big W!

 

Agree on all counts. JJ and Dwight were both mentally weak today, good thing Jameer has enough heart and mind for all of them.

 

Also to add....

 

THE UGLY

 

Matt Barnes finishing ability.

 

I'd also add...

 

THE BAD

 

Fastbreaks...3 on 1 breaks should not result in a 3-point shot from a trailer & the Magic had a couple other breaks that were executed about as poorly as could be.

[bravlady 0]

I no longer care for Michael Jordan. I was a huge MJ fan when he played for the Bulls but somehow now he leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Somehow I don't see this relationship with Larry Brown lasting too long. MJ needs to understand what his role is and let Larry do his job.

[Franchero MVP 391]

quote:

Originally posted by bravlady:

I no longer care for Michael Jordan. I was a huge MJ fan when he played for the Bulls but somehow now he leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Somehow I don't see this relationship with Larry Brown lasting too long. MJ needs to understand what his role is and let Larry do his job.

 

What did MJ do?

[Butterfly 3]

I have lost all respect for Michael Jordan. This Hack Howard strategy has not worked for them at all. MJ is dirty.

[Skywise316 211]

Stock Up:

 

Jameer Nelson. (...and somewhere, T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon twitch. All hail Mighty Mouse~! Talk about a clear cut MVP of this series.. 32 points, over 50% shooting both overall and from Three, 4 boards, 3 assists, 4 steals, and most importantly no turnovers. Without him we're no better than 2-1 in the series for sure, and maybe even down 1-2.)

 

Rashard Lewis. (There's not much you can complain about from this guy, except of course for his entirely too high 5 turnovers and some foul trouble. But the point is he *gasp* played hard interior defense on the inside again and hit a MONSTER three late in the 4th quarter. If Jameer's been the star, Shard has been the X-Factor that comes through so far.)

 

Free Throw Shooting. (19 of 25 for 76 percent. Which was a little better than at home and juuust good enough to win this game. Thank goodness Dwight went 5 for 10 from the line instead of 1 for 10, every point counted.)

 

Team Rebounding. (The Magic had 10 more total rebounds and 5 more offensive reboundsthan Charlotte. Huge key on the road in the playoffs.)

 

Stock In The Middle:

 

Marcin Gortat. (Talk about pulling your butt out of the Stock Down fire! I was completely upset with Gortat's performance, especially on defense and specifically with how easy it seems to be for people to score right over the top of him, during the course of this game. Much like I wasn't happy with him in Game 1. However "all is forgiven" thanks to hitting 3 of those last 4 free throws! You go boy!!)

 

Getting To The Line. (I know that the refs have to help in this regard, but the bad news? Only 6 free throw attempts in the first three quarters for O-town. That's not Magic b-ball. The good? 19 FTs taken in the final frame.)

 

Jason Williams. (Yep. Still not doing anything, really. Luckily for him on D, at least, DJ Augustin missed his wide open shots today.)

 

Stock Down:

 

Stan Van Gundy. (Okay, look... I know the Magic won, but turthfully, in was in spite of the Godawful rotations by one SVG. I just have some questions. WHY keep bringing Dwight back at the start of quarters, particularly the 2nd and 4th? Wouldn't it be wiser to have Gortat buy a few more minutes for Dwight, play time and score, and give Dwight less chances to pick up early-in-the-quarter fouls? Isn't it mroe important to have Dwight at the end of quarters, instead of the beginning of them? WHY Barnes over Pietrus in the 4th quarter? had MP done anything particularly special to keep Barnes out in crunchtime? WHY play J.J. Redick like, at ALL in this game?? If he didn't match up well back in Orlando, why does he suddenly now? Why let Larry Hughes continue to light him up? Why let him continue to throw up bricks? Why have him inbound at the end only to throw the ball to Gortat to be fouled when the Magic have TWO timeouts left??

 

Why.. Stan.. WHY!? *facepalm*)

 

Turnovers. (I still don't know how we survived this. 19 turnovers against the Bobcats in THEIR gym? 13 in the first half alone?? Goes to show how potentially special this Magic team is to overcome this disastrous result of the game.)

 

Vince Carter. (To quote one Jeff Van Gundy, he's too good to be just another guy on the floor. I appreciate the defensive effort from him, but 10 points on 4 of 11 shooting, nothing from deep, no assists, and 5 turnovers? I don't care if Captain Jack and G-Force ARE defending him.. he's gotta be better than that. He's not average, he's Vinsanity. If Jameer can pwn the paint like he has in this series, then I know Vince can do the same. If he puts his mind to it, anyway.)

 

J.J. Redick. (I'll be the first to defend him, but he could do NOTHING right today. Larry Hughes had him twisted in knots, he wasn't making a difference on the offensive end, and made a stupid pass to Gortat that, luckily didn't come back to haunt the Magic late in the game. He played 11 minutes today, and it was 11 minutes too long. Hopefully he gets it going soon... in my opinion, much like D12 & VC in Game 1, he was too overhyped and got away from playing his game.)

 

Mickael Pietrus. (Still not understanding how he plays 19 minutes in this game when he just clearly didn't have it going on, his first bad game in quite a while. But he was 0-3 from the field, held scoreless, and made a couple of boneheaded plays like bad fouls and stepping out of bounds. Also for whatever its worth, he had the lowest plus/minus on the team with -11. He and Redick just flat out were NOT in the game mentally today, it's that simple.)

 

Dwight Howard. (I greatly appreciate his fourth quarter play before he fouled out.. but c'mon guys. We can't really blame the refs for foul trouble this time. His first foul and fifth foul were complete bullcrap, yes. But his 2 or 3 offensive fouls and final foul on Felton were just plain silly, if not ignorant. Not to mention the technical.. shut UP already. He's GOT to be smarter on his part to stay away from these kinds of self-inflicted wounds, especially once the Magic start playing against better teams. Also the free throw shooting and turnovers leave something to be desired.

 

There are plenty of times to make excuses for Superman II.. but today wasn't one of them. He's gotta grow up and be smarter. Fast.)

 

Matt Barnes. (Even though I think he should of played more than 27 minutes, there's something I have to say.. Mad, would you please make a freggin' layup!?! Stop with the Rafer Alston impression! Ok, I feel better. )

 

That's about it. Basically, the Magic played, by far in my opinion, their WORST game of the series, and maybe their worst game for two or three weeks. Charlotte had everything they could possibly ask for go the way they wanted. But the Magic STILL won.

 

Sorry Charlotte. Sorry Stern. Sorry MJ. Mighty Mouse says the sweep is on... and there's not much more you can do to stop it.

[JRam027 26]

quote:

Originally posted by bravlady:

I no longer care for Michael Jordan. I was a huge MJ fan when he played for the Bulls but somehow now he leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Somehow I don't see this relationship with Larry Brown lasting too long. MJ needs to understand what his role is and let Larry do his job.

 

Larry Brown is leaving for Phily next year anyways. It's already been ok'd by MJ

[F1ash 0]

Gotta admit that the Mark Cuban impersonation by MJ is quite sad. He's probably trying to become the first Owner/President/VP/GM/Assistant GM/Head Scout/Head Coach in the history of pro sports...

[F1ash 0]

BTW, Jameer for MVP of Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs.

[hessman22 0]

Jameer is the only reason we won tonight. Loss for sure without him.

 

O, and I never liked Jordan, he is amazing at basketball but everything I heard about him off the court was that he is a horrible human being.

[Captain Hindsight 50]

lol @ at the jordan hate in this thread..

[Emory889 353]

quote:

Dwight Howard. (I greatly appreciate his fourth quarter play before he fouled out.. but c'mon guys. We can't really blame the refs for foul trouble this time. His first foul and fifth foul were complete bullcrap, yes. But his 2 or 3 offensive fouls and final foul on Felton were just plain silly, if not ignorant. Not to mention the technical.. shut UP already. He's GOT to be smarter on his part to stay away from these kinds of self-inflicted wounds, especially once the Magic start playing against better teams. Also the free throw shooting and turnovers leave something to be desired.

 

I completely disagree with this. No one on this planet is going to convince me that Chandler grabbing Dwight's arm (which is how Dwight picked up two of his offensive fouls), Dwight ripping his arm out of Chandler's hands, should somehow be a offensive foul on Dwight. I'm sorry. That is completely absurd. I'll go ahead and play devil's advocate though. Lets say that you are correct and the offensive fouls on Dwight were his fault. By your own admission, you think Dwight picked up two fouls that were complete crap which means he wouldn't have spent the majority of this game in foul trouble.

 

It's real easy to criticize Dwight for being inmature. We aren't the ones that have had to put up with 3 straight games of getting grabbed and hacked and then getting fouls on calls that are nothing short of complete crap. If I were him, I probably would have gone postal on someone by this point.