2023-2024 General Game Thread

[Soul Bro 1,419]

19 minutes ago, Jamesdin said:

losing Suggs sucks as we already are missing defensive bodies. wait, did you intentionally left fultz or was it a typo?

We could throw Fultz into that list, too. Health has been an issue for years for our guards at this point.

[orlandoholic 134]

This was an expected loss in my book.. We just can guard the Cavs. 

If healthy, it’s a different story. But we are missing a whole squad again. 

 

Fultz, Suggs, Isaac, WCJ. 

That’s our defense and most starters injured once again.. 

We just can’t catch a breath with these ancle sprains! They need to mandate Zamst or betterguard ancle braces for the whole team..

With these players out, our defense takes a big hit. I said it before. You can only play M. Wagner next to Isaac. Isaac covers up for the bad defense and rebounding of M. Wagner. well now we are playing Ingles at PF next to Wagner. It ain’t working. I’d actually give Okeke a shot here. 

 

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

There's no way you win a game in 2023 with 2 made threes.

Franz was horrible for a large portion of the game, struggling to score and letting that affect his defense. Final line doesn't look too bad because he shared the ball and got to the FT line.

Losing Suggs sucks. Really hope that isn't major. 

The all bench unit (or even majority bench unit) simply does not work defensively without Jonathan Isaac. Too many mismatches to hunt, too many guys who don't impact it on that end of the floor. 

Missing WCJ terribly honestly, his mobility and toughness would have been huge against this very quick perimeter Cavs team with 2 bigs down low.

It's a testament to our relentlessness to attack the paint that that game was kind of close.Paolo was awesome, feel bad that literally none of his teammates could help him out on that end for an extended stretch. 

Honestly I'd have liked to see more Anthony Black. Thought he was great in the minutes he played. 

Cole Anthony infuriates the hell out of me. Sometimes he's phenomenal. Sometimes he does the dumbest stuff. Like you just force a turnover and he dribbles it down straight into a pull up 3, nobody else touches the basketball. He misses and they turn it into early offense and score. That's a 4 point swing on one possession off of a dumb shot. I get when he's feeling it he can hit those but only one Magic player was feeling it tonight and it wasn't him.

I'm starting to wonder if the way this team played in that opening 15 or so games was more of an anomaly than who they were. We were relentless on the glass, we were everywhere on defense and we were forcing a load of turnovers. This was another game where we quite frankly looked bad defensively for large periods and got out rebounded massively including on the offensive glass. 

 

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

Someone has to be the team that loses to the Pistons, and at this point honestly I'm scared it's going to be us. 

[JJZFL 619]

5 hours ago, orlandoholic said:

This was an expected loss in my book.. We just can guard the Cavs. 

If healthy, it’s a different story. But we are missing a whole squad again. 

 

Fultz, Suggs, Isaac, WCJ. 

That’s our defense and most starters injured once again.. 

We just can’t catch a breath with these ancle sprains! They need to mandate Zamst or betterguard ancle braces for the whole team..

With these players out, our defense takes a big hit. I said it before. You can only play M. Wagner next to Isaac. Isaac covers up for the bad defense and rebounding of M. Wagner. well now we are playing Ingles at PF next to Wagner. It ain’t working. I’d actually give Okeke a shot here. 

 

I think your point about Isaac helping cover for Mo defensively is an important one.  I didn’t fully appreciate it before but it’s very obvious now against good teams with Isaac out.  
 

I might consider Schofield rather than Okeke, more of a defensive presence in my opinion, but your point stands.  

[Albert Lergier 99]

6 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

There's no way you win a game in 2023 with 2 made threes.

Franz was horrible for a large portion of the game, struggling to score and letting that affect his defense. Final line doesn't look too bad because he shared the ball and got to the FT line.

Losing Suggs sucks. Really hope that isn't major. 

The all bench unit (or even majority bench unit) simply does not work defensively without Jonathan Isaac. Too many mismatches to hunt, too many guys who don't impact it on that end of the floor. 

Missing WCJ terribly honestly, his mobility and toughness would have been huge against this very quick perimeter Cavs team with 2 bigs down low.

It's a testament to our relentlessness to attack the paint that that game was kind of close.Paolo was awesome, feel bad that literally none of his teammates could help him out on that end for an extended stretch. 

Honestly I'd have liked to see more Anthony Black. Thought he was great in the minutes he played. 

Cole Anthony infuriates the hell out of me. Sometimes he's phenomenal. Sometimes he does the dumbest stuff. Like you just force a turnover and he dribbles it down straight into a pull up 3, nobody else touches the basketball. He misses and they turn it into early offense and score. That's a 4 point swing on one possession off of a dumb shot. I get when he's feeling it he can hit those but only one Magic player was feeling it tonight and it wasn't him.

I'm starting to wonder if the way this team played in that opening 15 or so games was more of an anomaly than who they were. We were relentless on the glass, we were everywhere on defense and we were forcing a load of turnovers. This was another game where we quite frankly looked bad defensively for large periods and got out rebounded massively including on the offensive glass. 

 

Uncle Joe was "guarding" sideways a few times last night....did anybody noticed?

Zero points, 3 fouls in 17 minutes....don't understand why Okeke can't crack playing time under last night circumstances.

 

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

24 minutes ago, Albert Lergier said:

Uncle Joe was "guarding" sideways a few times last night....did anybody noticed?

Zero points, 3 fouls in 17 minutes....don't understand why Okeke can't crack playing time under last night circumstances.

 

Okeke offers orders of magnitude less on offense than Ingles. 

[Albert Lergier 99]

Last night games (Dec 6), 3 points baskets made by each team:

Memphis 11, Detroit 11, Philly 8 , Wash 14, Bkn 11, Atl 12, SA 8 , Min 12, Mia 14, Tor 14, Cha 10, Chi 12, Okc 8 , Hou 15,  Utah 12, Dallas 22, Por 16, GS 10, Den 12, LAC 12

CAVS 14, MAGIC 2

HOWEVER, THE WORST PART IS THAT THE MAGIC ARE THE 2ND TO LAST 3 PT % TEAM IN THE EAST !!!! Only the Raptors are worst.

Defense, especially by the DPY (Jalen) was carrying the team...so what happens the next couple of weeks might not be fun to watch. Go Magic.

 

[Albert Lergier 99]

3 minutes ago, CTMagicUK said:

Okeke offers orders of magnitude less on offense than Ingles. 

But not always....last night Paolo was having a career game, he had the ball a lot. Joe was not performing his usual role and was bad defensively.

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

Just now, Albert Lergier said:

But not always....last night Paolo was having a career game, he had the ball a lot. Joe was not performing his usual role and was bad defensively.

Joe Ingles by standing stationary on the wing is doing more for our offense than Chuma Okeke could offer. Because even on a cold shooting night you have to close out on Joe hard. Chuma you just help off of and live with the results.

Paolo also still needs someone to get him the ball in his spots.

[Phil4Real 45]

I'm pretty concerned about the injuries, especially the time that take some of them. Markelle's situation is pretty sad. It make more sense now to have drafted Anthony Black, but he is not yet at the level of the starting five or at the level of our current goals. I agree, our FO could make a move to find a guard in the Free Agency or via Trade, but I don't really see that happening right now. Most probably we'll wait for Markelle and live with the results meanwhile. But the Markelle's future and the PG-decision is gonna be there again at the end of the year. 

 

Let's see what we look like tomorrow with 3 and of our starters and JI out. The good news is we play Detroit at home :) 

[CTMagicUK 1,482]

Suggs is questionable for tonight.

So he probably doesn't play but at least its seemingly not that serious.

I expect Harris starts, Houstan joins the bench unit and Jett gets any minutes Houstan would usually play. 

I'd like to see AB get serious burn as well, we'll probably need his defense on Cade without Suggs.