Tonight the playoff seeding and matchups are on the line. The Magic and Raptors are tied up at 1-1 for the season series between the two teams. Nelson feels well enough to play but Dooling is still out with his troubling left foot injury. And because Dooling, the backup shooting guard, is out, that opens up the door to... the one, the only, J.J. Redick. This if from this morning's report from the Orlando Sentinel by Tim Povtak. And as 3QC reported today, this could be the make it or break it time for J.J. and how well he plays tonight just might determine what happens from here on out. Time to shine J.J. You have cried and complained for those minutes. Now it's time to go out and grab them. Redick did score 10 points in 16 minutes against the Sixers on Wednesday, but they were garbage buckets.
The Magic are 15 games over .500 and our 8-5 (.62%) record in February helped bump us up there. According to MagicMadness, our "Magic Number" is 15. Any combination of wins for the Magic and losses by the Wizards will lead us to our first Southeast Division Title in a while.
Coach Stan Van Gundy calls Calderon and Ford "two of the quickest guys in the league, two of the best pick-and-roll guys. It does make it difficult." This is scary especially because we will have Arroyo (not a great defender), Nelson (not a great defender and is just coming back from the flu), and Turkoglu (a possible tall option at the point with Nelson just coming back) guarding them.
In previous years, having the star out for the other team would prove disastrous. Just as Ben Q. Rock pointed out, that still holds true because so many players have had their carrer highs (or close to it) against us this season. Bosh dropped 40 against us in a game last month, but he is currently nursing a bad ankle.
There is no such thing as taking them lightly which we did last season when they beat us without Bosh. But there's a catch; we were without Turkoglu.
1 comment:
Nice blog with lots of info... all the links you provide are all very informative.
Keep up the good work and GO MAGIC!!
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