Fan Voice: "Fan Ranting"

[Live or Die Magic 383]

The Fan Voice: "Fan Ranting"

 

By Live or Die Magic | March 31st, 2011

 

It could be that the itching and scratching of this week-old playoff beard is starting to make me a bit touchy, but I decided I needed to get some things off my chest. So here goes...

 

 

• Beginning with the Finals run in 2009, I have been growing a playoff beard, at the start of the first round and shaving once the Magic are eliminated from the playoffs. This year I planned to do it again. However, I have succumbed to peer (and team) pressure and begun my playoff beard early. I will be quite grizzly by the time the first round even starts. I will be very upset if the rumors are true that the Magic players are waffling on their “Fear the Beard” stance of only a week ago.
   
  
• It was bad enough that Dwight Howard was whistled for a technical for tossing the ball away in the Knicks game, but it was even worse that the League office was given a chance to correct the mistake and chose to uphold it. And don’t try to tell me it was justified, that’s not the point. Plenty of stuff other players do that should “justified” a technical gets a pass. Howard has become a target, plain and simple.
   
  
• What does it say about the state of the NBA that I enjoy Miami Heat losses only slightly less than I enjoy Orlando Magic victories? If it was simply a rivalry thing, it would be a good thing. But in this case, it is because of what the NBA has allowed itself to become.
   
  
• Just because a guy has a TV show and claims to be a sports fan, it doesn’t make him knowledgeable about the sport. I had to laugh at Jimmy Fallon last week for encouraging Howard to join the New York Knicks. Based on the current situation, Howard has as much chance to play for the Seattle Supersonics in 2012 as he does for the Knicks. On a side note, I find it humorous that Fallon, a native of Brooklyn and a presumed Yankees fan, portrayed the biggest Red Sox fan ever in the movie “Fever Pitch.”
   
  
• It bothers me every time I hear the talking heads on the national networks make comments implying that most NBA fans only care about the major market teams. I know for a fact that the Orlando Magic fan base is as rabid and loyal as any fan base in the entire league, small market or not. If the Magic don’t win, I’m surely not rooting for the Celtics, Knicks, Heat, or Lakers. Give me Oklahoma City or even the San Antonio Spurs again any day.
   
  
• Speaking of OKC, I hated seeing the Seattle Supersonics leave Seattle and there being very little the average Sonics fan could do about it. On the plus side, it was great to see the team go to a smaller “one horse” market like Oklahoma City and begin to thrive there. I can’t see any good that could come of the Kings successfully leaving Sacramento and giving the greater Los Angeles area a 3rd NBA team! I’m sure Lakers fans in LA would gladly trade the other two NBA teams for one NFL franchise.
   
  
• It is unfortunate that Dwight Howard is likely an also ran for the Most Valuable Player award this season. I understand why Derrick Rose is the front-runner and why the Chicago Bulls are such a great story. But I still think that Howard is slightly more important to the Magic than Rose is to the Bulls. With that statement out of the way, I say that the Bulls can have all the accolades, so long as we crush them in Round 2 of the playoffs.
   
  
• I really really want to like Gilbert Arenas. He is wearing the Magic uniform, and therefore, I feel compelled to like him. However, his play on the court is starting to affect my ability to develop an affinity for him. In the back of my mind, I continually repeat “just wait till he has a full offseason with us, things will be better.” Won’t they? WON’T THEY!!??
   
  
• If you’re the Orlando Magic, you don’t lose to the Atlanta Hawks. You might slip up and lose to a team like the Toronto Raptors or the Golden State Warriors, but you don’t lose to the Atlanta Hawks! We are supposed to own the Atlanta Hawks! We are supposed to be to them what the Detroit Pistons used to be to us. And now we have lost three times to the Hawks this season, giving them the season sweep. What is wrong with this picture/! Why would we want to give the Hawks any sense of confidence going into an inevitable first round matchup with them?
   
  
• Did anyone else see the Hawks’ Jason Collins deliberately grab Howard and angrily spin him around under the basket in the 2nd half last night? How was that not a technical foul? This came after Collins was allowed to bring both arms forcibly down on Howard’s shoulders in the first half. Both times, only a foul was called.
  

 

OK, this one is more of an observation than a rant. We sit at 47-28 with seven games to go. The loss to the Knicks in overtime was tough; the loss to the Hawks last night even tougher. Still, I see no reason why we cannot finish the season with a 7-game winning streak. Of our remaining seven games, the only one in which we will not be favored is the April 10th game vs. the Bulls. If we win the four games between now and then, our momentum could carry us to a victory over the Bulls. From that point, we should easily finish with 54 wins and the slimmest of slim chances to overtake the Celtics for the #3 seed. Nothing wrong with hoping!

 

 

This message was not subject of approval by the NBA or the Orlando Magic. The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of the Orlando Magic or the NBA, but solely the writer.

[Ned Ryerson 94]

Don't get your hopes up for what an offseason can do for Gil. He blew it when he didn't put in the effort to rehab his knee after all the previous surgeries. He will always underperform in a Magic jersey and it is the massive, massive flaw on Otis' resume... Which he might want to update.

[~O~ 565]

Dwight Howard has been flagrantly fouled in each of the past ten games with no call. I already knew the league was against the Magic but not at this extent. Don't get me started about last night.

 

By the way, I'm surprised you didn't curse like yours truly. :shard:

[Ibn Battuta 127]

The hawks loss was frustrating, but i'm not worried about it. The hawks have enough talent to beat us, but mentally they are weak. If you think we are too up and down, you haven't seen the hawks, especially after the AS break. Also they didn't sweep us, we beat them once so 3-1.

 

If I was Stan, i'd tell the players "let's reach 50 wins, and i'll rest you guys for the playoffs." A 7 game win streak would be sweet, but unless opponents just roll over for us i'd say scrap it. Guys can get rest, and we have a favorable enough matchup with the hawks. I'm confident enough that whatever issues or problems present themselves at that time, we can work it out against the hawks.

[30Assists 342]

I think the Celts will start their yearly ritual of resting players any day now, too - seeding just doesn't mean as much to them. We might have a chance to overtake them if that's the case.

 

On to the topic at hand....ahem:

 

* As someone who has reffed in the past, I'll usually give the refs a pass if they miss a call or call a play one way or the other if it's close. Calling something a goal-tend isn't so easy when you stand 5'9 - if the ball looks like it's going down? Okay - fine. Reffing is a hard job, and doing it in front of a huge audience, where super slo-mo is available, has got to be nerve-wracking.

 

All that said? We're getting shafted.

 

There's no nice way to put it: we may rarely get a call that goes our way that's questionable, but especially in the last two games (Dwight's fifth foul last night was ridiculous: he whiffed and didn't touch anything) have been hard to stomach. I get it: Dwight's hard to ref because he's so strong, but come on - HE IS GOING TO GET INJURED.

 

The calls that Dwight is not getting, and that the Magic as a whole are not getting, are easy calls. A ref will be look RIGHT AT the play when it happens and do nothing. Now if the game were being called consistently, I'd expect us to be able to do something similar on defense, but no - that's not the case.

 

Boston, Miami, and now even New York (if the last game is a trend) are allowed to play "defense." I put that in quotes, because it's more like a wrestling match than anything resembling basketball. I sometimes wonder if Rondo would get called for a foul if he ran onto the court with a chainsaw, or if they'd call it on the other guy for getting in his way.

 

For me, it's not so much that the Magic get called for cheap fouls. In most cases they ARE fouls. What bothers me is that they aren't the sort of fouls the teams we play against are called for IN THE SAME GAME, sometimes within seconds of each other.

 

The Magic as a whole seem to suffer from a total lack of respect. I think (hope) that once they win a championship (this year) ((dammit)), this will fade and we'll be given the same latitude the "great" "defensive" teams of Miami and Boston are given.

[bhnole 153]

If I am not mistaken the Magic have been selling out for nearly the last three years despite being based in smaller market in a state lagging behind the rest of the nation in recovering from the "Great Recession"......yep Orlando fans really don't care about their team.

 

San Antonio has been consistently the best run franchise over the last 15 years but gets no where near the press adoration as does one of the worst run franchises in the Knicks. So much for the title parade the media was planning in NYC after the Melo trade...

 

They do the same thing in other sports as well in fawning over the Yankees, Red Sox, Cowboys, Giants, etc., as writers it is much easier to build a following by focusing on teams in larger markets. Journalistic intregrity means nothing when keeping your job in a tough industry depends on how many hits your article gets online.

 

Just wish they would finally stop pretending to be unbiased. I find a writer like Bill Simmons both infuriating and hilarious but at least he admits to his Celtics homerism.

[Berto 338]

Dwight said he didn't shave, so I'll take his word for it. I think the only guy who hasn't started yet is Bass, because he says it only takes him 3-4 days to be Grizzly Adams.

 

As far as the Hawks game goes, I just hope we're the Celtics of last year, and a different gear is switched on for the playoffs. I doubt it, but I still have a little die hard fan optimism left in me.

[Drain-O 369]

It is completely infuriating but unless Dwight falls over like every other player that gets fouled nobody is going to be called for technicals or flagrant fouls. Collins was allowed to get very physical with Dwight yet others on the Hawks were awarded for flops.

 

Also big or small market I really don't care. If this season ends in no title for the Magic (very likely) any other team can win it besides Miami.

[Give Me Redick All Day 109]

Jimmy Fallon is a joke. I have no idea how he got his own show, save for trading sexual favors with an executive producer.

 

His writing was only passable on SNL because of his proximity to Tina Fey (she's a genius, as far as I'm concerned), and his delivery is like a 13 year old telling a naughty joke for the first time.

[Live or Die Magic 383]

Good catch bigpimp...I meant to say that the Hawks won the season series. We beat the Hawks in the first meeting of the season; though it wasn't the usual Magic blowout for which we've become accustom.

 

I'm a bit concerned about the first round for this reason...we've stayed inconsistent all season. Last season we started strong, had a lull at mid-season, and then kicked it into another gear to close out the year. This year's team has had shorter spurts of winning and losing. I know we have something like the 3rd best record in the East since the all-star break, but that really isn't saying much this season, because of the way that the rest of the East (minus Chicago, and recently, Miami) have been playing.

 

It is why I'd really like to see us end the season on a winning streak, even if we are stuck at the 4th seed.

[Ibn Battuta 127]

the thing I love about this team is that I have yet to see a game where the guys throw in the towel or call it a night. The team could have easily given up the win to the Knicks the other night but they didn't and we had a shot at the end but......(so on and so forth). Same can be said vs NO which we lost, the kings game (turk hitting a clutch 3), the warriors game (unbelievable 3pt shooting), of course the miami game (we could have easily mailed it in after halftime). The portland game without Dwight was close till the end. The philly game with J-rich crazy 4pt play and JJ 4pt play. I can't think of any more examples but i'm sure there are more.

 

Last season we were so good that we just blew teams out of the water during the regular season and for the most part the playoffs. Then we woke up down 0-2 to the celtics and it was like "what the hell just happened." It took a last minute call from Hakeem to turn the series slightly over, but we all doubted our chances.

 

Point is, our resiliency this season has been nothing short of amazing. IDK i just have a feeling this could be it.......

[FlawlessVictory 26]

the thing I love about this team is that I have yet to see a game where the guys throw in the towel or call it a night. The team could have easily given up the win to the Knicks the other night but they didn't and we had a shot at the end but......(so on and so forth). Same can be said vs NO which we lost, the kings game (turk hitting a clutch 3), the warriors game (unbelievable 3pt shooting), of course the miami game (we could have easily mailed it in after halftime). The portland game without Dwight was close till the end. The philly game with J-rich crazy 4pt play and JJ 4pt play. I can't think of any more examples but i'm sure there are more.

 

Last season we were so good that we just blew teams out of the water during the regular season and for the most part the playoffs. Then we woke up down 0-2 to the celtics and it was like "what the hell just happened." It took a last minute call from Hakeem to turn the series slightly over, but we all doubted our chances.

 

Point is, our resiliency this season has been nothing short of amazing. IDK i just have a feeling this could be it.......

I see where you're going with all this, but I wouldn't exactly call it "resiliency". I think the fact that we were blowing teams out last year or at least winning convincingly as compared to now, where we're "not out of games" we SHOULD win is in fact a direct correlation of how much WORSE this team has actually gotten. We've had some extremely painful losses and to teams we had absolutely no business losing to, but all year long we came up with excuse after excuse from "hey, every team loses here and there" to "it's okay that player X shot really well tonight...it'll NEVER happen again", lol! How many times have we heard that this season?!

 

To reward this team's sloppy/sub-par play by calling them "resilient" is just asinine.