<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">[IMGL]http://espn.go.com/i/teamlogos/nba/sml/trans/orl.gif[/IMGL] #15 Magic (18-14) Magic's darling status is gone, just like that, after they followed up a magical November (12-4) with a 6-10 mark in December, including five losses at home.</div> Source Can't say I disagree with the guy. It just sucks we had to nosedive like this.
Yeah, injuries suck. On a side note: What's up with Wizards ranked 6th? I know Arenas has been crazy lately but that's a bit too high.
well look at it this way, decemeber is over and january is a whole new month, predicted record in january: HOME: 6-1 AWAY: 4-3 TOTAL: 10-4 GOING INTO FEBRUARY: 28-18 i think that tonight we will beat the clippers, simply because it's a home game and we will be looking for revenge for that loss out in LA that snapped our 3-game road win streak. the 3rd game of our 4 game home stand is against the bobcats. need i say more? mark this one down in the 'W' column. the final game before going out west on a 4 game road trip is sunday against boston and i predict a win for the good guys because the celtics are not a good team at all this year and if we beat them up there, im sure we can take them at home, easily. the first game back from our 4 game west coast swing is against divisional rivals, the washington wizards. i think the magic will be looking for revenge for what happened a couple of nights ago and will beat this eastern conference foe to move to 2-1 against them on the season. the very next home game is against the dallas mavericks and, well as good as they are, the magic always find a way to beat this team at home, im not as worried about this game as i am about the bucks game. the hawks game will be a victory as we start the home-and-home series with them. the good thing is the first game is at our house and if we win this one (which i strongly believe we will), it makes the next game that much easier because what you look for in a home-and-home series, is a split, a sweep would be amazing. finally, the only loss at home in january will come at the expense of the milwaukee bucks, who are playing good basketball as of late and maurice williams is starting to look like iverson out there. the kid is amazing and they should be happy they got rid of ford and let this kid start (he's obviously better). also, if villanueva comes back, they will be hard to stop, and not to mention they always seems to play good against us, im sure ariza will see a lot of time in this game, trying to stop the hot hand (redd or villanueva). our 3 road losses this month will come at LA and the very next night at phoenix, and at cleveland. the 4 wins will come in GS, NOK, NJ, and ATL. i think the lakers are a much better team than us and we always struggle in LA against them, the SUNS, well i mean they're the suns and they will rack up 130 on us and beat us by 10+, and the cavaliers have always been tough for us to take on the road, i hope im wrong but i dont see us winning this game either. now to the 4 road wins. golden state will be a win for us because j-rick will be out and they beat us on our home court, if we're healthy enough (meaning we have dwight/jameer/hedo/ariza/hill/battie or darko) we can win this came with ease. the next road win will be against the hornets, we beat them here and chris paul had a chris paul game with 19/10/5, but this time CP3 is out and the magic will exploit that, also we seems to always do good against the hornets at their house, mark this one down as a win. we will also beat the nets in new jersey, seeing as we always do well against them over there too, vince carter will have a sub-par game scoring between 17 and 22 points while jason kidd and their guards will have a horrible time shooting the ball, the only playr im worried about (and it would also be krstic but his season is over) is marcus williams because he is so dangerous and i think we made a mistake by not picking him up and then shipping jameer for another first rounder where we could have picked up carney or sefolosha. our final road win will come at atlanta. this will be a tough game because it's the back end of a home and home series with them, but i think the magic will pull this one out along with the home game (see above), to take the season series from the hawks, 3-1. dwight will have a huge game in both of these games as the hawks dont have anyone nearly as big and powerful as dwight, and zaza and sheldon will have roblems stopping him.
<div class="quote_poster">Riot Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">On a side note: What's up with Wizards ranked 6th? I know Arenas has been crazy lately but that's a bit too high.</div> I was thinking the same exact thing. The Wizards have been playing good but Stein jumped on Washington's jock pretty quickly. Even though Kwame Brown just went down with an injury, I still think the Lakers should be ahead of the Wizards. I guess it wouldn't look good having all Western Conference teams up until number seven though. Also, good analysis d-money. This stretch is going to important for us and we really need to prove to ourselves and to the rest of the league that what we did earlier this season wasn't a fluke. Like Stein said, our darling status is gone and until we can start producing wins, people aren't going to take us seriously. We really need to work on getting Dwight more touches offensively and get back to the aggressive defense we were playing at the start of the season. Maybe it's time to make some changes in the starting lineup such as moving Darko ahead of Battie or Ariza ahead of Hedo. Something has to be done because we can't continue to slip up. We built up a nice little buffer with all those early wins but these losses are going to catch up to us at the end of the season.
now imagine if we had played only .500 or like .550 ball prior to december...we would be in a deep hole right now, and knowing the magic, we wouldn't have gotten out of it...thankfully we had a 12-4 novemeber and now we can get back playing the ball that we played in march/april of last year and november this year
Can't say I'd argue with that ranking. The Magic went in to free fall mode last month after starting off hot. Hopefully, for the sake of you guys (and for the pitiful East) you can turn it around.
I know this is a couple of days old but I wanted to discuss this. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">the only playr im worried about (and it would also be krstic but his season is over) is marcus williams because he is so dangerous and i think we made a mistake by not picking him up and then shipping jameer for another first rounder where we could have picked up carney or sefolosha.</div> You think we should have started Marcus Williams, traded Jameer, and then drafted Carney or Seflosha? What do the rest of you guys think of this. Marcus Williams has a lot of potential and he seems like a pretty good playmaker. Jameer has struggled with consistency but I still want to give him a chance and see how he performs the rest of the season. In regards to Carney, I'm kinda glad we didn't pick Rodney with the way Trevor Ariza has been progressing. Both players are athletic wings that bring energy to the floor so I don't see the point of having both of them (also Ariza is the better defender of the two). I love Thabo's game though because he is extremely versatile. I see him becoming a very good player down the road and I would have loved to pick him up. Would it be worth Jameer though? I'm not sure.
<div class="quote_poster">Swish Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I know this is a couple of days old but I wanted to discuss this. You think we should have started Marcus Williams, traded Jameer, and then drafted Carney or Seflosha? What do the rest of you guys think of this. Marcus Williams has a lot of potential and he seems like a pretty good playmaker. Jameer has struggled with consistency but I still want to give him a chance and see how he performs the rest of the season. In regards to Carney, I'm kinda glad we didn't pick Rodney with the way Trevor Ariza has been progressing. Both players are athletic wings that bring energy to the floor so I don't see the point of having both of them (also Ariza is the better defender of the two). I love Thabo's game though because he is extremely versatile. I see him becoming a very good player down the road and I would have loved to pick him up. Would it be worth Jameer though? I'm not sure.</div> No way you do that if you were the Magic in the offseason. You can look back at it now and say that that's what we should have done, but Jameer was primed to breakout this season and who knows how good Marcus Williams was going to be. There must have been question marks because he fell quite a bit in the draft. Hindsight is 20-20, but at the time of the draft, the Magic fans(and probably you too) would have laughed in the face of someone who suggested that.
<div class="quote_poster">GatorsowntheNCAA Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">No way you do that if you were the Magic in the offseason. You can look back at it now and say that that's what we should have done, but Jameer was primed to breakout this season and who knows how good Marcus Williams was going to be. There must have been question marks because he fell quite a bit in the draft. Hindsight is 20-20, but at the time of the draft, the Magic fans(and probably you too) would have laughed in the face of someone who suggested that.</div> Yeah I would have laughed it off and even now I'm not sure if I would do it.
