<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">It used to be fun coming to Florida, arriving early and staying late, packing the shorts, shades and clubs, even bringing the family sometimes, turning it into a working vacation. Checking the schedule to find the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic in back-to-back road games -- especially with a day in between -- was cause for celebration in many cities. Not anymore. Not in the NBA. Not in some time. "I remember the days when teams made the trip down here and thought they could get some warm weather, get the sticks out and play some golf," said Orlando Magic Coach Brian Hill. "They figured regardless of what they did, they'd get two wins." That joy ride, though, has turned into a bad sunburn. The Chicago Bulls are the visitors this week, playing in Miami tonight and Orlando on Thursday, well aware of the perils after what happened to them earlier in the season on an identical trip, suffering through a 15-point loss to the Magic in which they never seriously contended. "Orlando has a huge advantage," said Bulls Coach Scott Skiles, the former Magic player, last week. "I have a real issue about why we have to play Miami every time before we go to Orlando. It clearly favors Orlando. It's a scheduling problem." No one complained in the early '90s when the Heat and the Magic were expansion teams getting beaten up regularly. It was known as the Florida Feast for many franchises. But when the Magic started their mid-90s playoff run, and the Heat hired Pat Riley in 1995 to toughen their franchise, the mood changed. It became the Florida Frustration. And even when the Magic struggled in recent years, the two Florida teams still made it tough on the visitors, pulling out the welcome mat from under their feet, turning it into a tourist trap. Last season, for example, 20 times teams came to Florida to play in Orlando and Miami. They limped away with a combined 10-30 record. Even this season, with the Heat having a disappointing start and the Magic floundering, opponents still have had their problems in these back-to-back sets. Going into tonight, 12 opponents have done the Florida double dip, leaving with a 9-15 record. Of those opponents, eight have stopped first in Miami, which is Skiles' biggest complaint. And he isn't the only one who noticed. "If I was Miami, I'd be calling the league on this one," said Denver Coach George Karl, whose team won in Miami but lost the next night in Orlando back in November. "There are some cities in this country -- and Miami is one of them -- that make a coach nervous. The entertainment factor is there every night in Miami. By comparison, there isn't much entertainment on a Sunday night in Memphis.'' Although coaches and players no longer regard the Florida trip as easy, Northern and Midwest teams in the middle of winter and early spring still can't help but relax when their plane lands and they see all the sunshine. It's a natural reaction. In Miami, the allure of South Beach is beckoning with an outdoor nightlife that can soften even the toughest veteran. "There just aren't a lot of non-cold-weather cites in the league, and coming here is a chance to get a couple days of sunshine. It's a disadvantage for a road team, especially one with young guys on it," said Dallas veteran Jerry Stackhouse when the Mavericks played here. "If you don't have some strong veterans on the team, it could be a problem." It was no problem this season for the tightly focused Mavericks, who beat the Heat by six points in a rematch of the NBA Finals, then drilled the Magic two days later by 16 points. The Mavericks, though, have the best record in the NBA. The Phoenix Suns, the second-best team in the NBA, did the same thing, sweeping the Florida teams. That is a rare occurrence. Everyone else has had serious problems this season. The veteran-laden San Antonio Spurs lost at both stops. So did the Seattle SuperSonics, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Milwaukee Bucks and the New Orleans Hornets. "South Beach can kind of seduce people," said Magic guard Keyon Dooling, who previously played for the Heat and grew up in Fort Lauderdale. "And Miami can get the best of some of these guys, so hopefully they can come up here a little tired." Although it doesn't happen every season, the Florida swing has been troublesome consistently for opponents. Since the 2002-03 season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, opponents making two consecutive stops in Florida have compiled only a 73-109 record (.401 winning percentage). And these have been down years for the Magic. "I don't know if it's an advantage for us, but it's an advantage for the Magic," Miami star Dwyane Wade said earlier this season before he sustained a separated shoulder. "It's always us catching teams coming here and them giving us their best shot. Then they go up to Orlando and lay an egg." Boston Coach Doc Rivers, when he coached the Magic, believed that visiting teams often lost their focus because of the warm weather and the party scene they found in Miami. For years, NBA players talked with dread about the Texas Triangle, having to take an extended road trip with stops in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas before leaving the state. Now coaches talk in the same tones about coming to Florida. "I've had pros who stayed out late every night, and it never bothered them," Karl said during the Magic's trip to Denver. "I've had other guys, as soon as they stay out late one night, it's obvious they can't handle it. You just have to hope, when they go to places like Miami, they are professional enough to know what they can do. Then it's not a problem."</div> Source Thoughts?
Stop whining, I'm sure back in the day when we had Shaq/Penny we were the first stop. Wouldn't you rather play the better team with rest or would you rather play them on the 2nd game in the back to back? If anything I think this favors the teams visiting Florida to have a shot at Miami when rested and then play a lesser team like Orlando when you are a little tired.
I think Skiles has every right to complain, it is bad enough that the Bulls have the long Western road trips every season due to the United Center yearly schedule. None so much more obvious then the "Circus Trip." The NBA should be a bit more fair in that sense when creating their schedule each season. If they would remove a few of the team's long road trips then I don't think there would be a problem. However, all that about the NBA favoring Orlando is full of crap.
