@ <span style="color:#FF0000">Toronto Raptors(7-14)</span> <span style="color:#FF0000">Projected Starters: TJ Ford, Anthony Parker, Jorge Garbajosa, Joey Graham, Rasho Nesterovic</span><span style="color:#800080">Key Bench Players: Fred Jones, Jose Calderon, PJ Tucker, Andrea Bargnani, Morris Peterson, Kris Humphries.</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Orlando Magic(15-8)</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Projected Starters: Carlos Arroyo, Keyon Dooling, Grant Hill, Tony Battie, Dwight Howard</span><span style="color:#000000">Key Bench Players: Darko Milicic, Trevor Ariza, Bo Outlaw, Travis Diener, JJ Redick</span><span style="color:#2F4F4F">Injury Report:</span><span style="color:#FF0000">Raptors:</span> Chris Bosh- Knee- Out Pape Sow- Neck- Out<span style="color:#0000FF">Magic:</span> Keith Bogans- Ankle- Questionable Hedo Turkoglu- Ankle- Out Jameer Nelson- Groin- Out<span style="color:#2E8B57">Valos' X-factors:</span><span style="color:#800080">For the Raptors,</span> With Chris Bosh out, and not much of a low post game, Rasho is drawing the daunting task of having to guard Dwight Howard who will be eager to prove something after the performane from him on Monday. They will need him to play as big as he can, and do all that he can to try to throw Howard off of his game. If he can get Howard off of his game, and upset him early, that will be a big plus for this ball team.<span style="color:#0000FF">For the Magic, </span>Travis Diener will be the x-factor tonight. With Jameer Nelson out, Arroyo will undoubtedly step into the starting spot, making Diener the only backup point guard today. We will need him to step up and play some big minutes, and we might need his shot to open us up a bit. Teams keep going to zone on us, maybe his shooting will get us out of having to face zones all night.<span style="color:#4B0082">Valo's Key Matchup:</span><span style="color:#FF0000">TJ Ford</span> and <span style="color:#0000FF">Carlos Arroyo</span> at the starting point guard spot should be the key matchup of the day. Both are able to get into the lane, and penetrate well. The key will be, who can stop the other from doing what they like to do the most. Neither are good at defense, but I feel the one that plays the better defense here will set up their team nicely. <span style="color:#000000">Valo's thoughts:</span> This is not a good team the Magic face tonight. With Bosh this is not a very good team, without him, this is a terrible team. They have lost their last four games, and are really searching for someone to step it up offensively with Bosh on the bench. The past two games they have posted low scores of 83 points, and 77 points for the games, while giving up 99 points, and 93 points in those games. With the lopsided loss that the Magic had this past monday, they need a team like this to come here, to get the steam going again. <span style="color:#0000FF">Valo's prediction:</span> I think the Magic win by 13 or more points today. I don't really see these Raptors being able to stop the Magic, particularly down low where Howard should have a field day with whoever guards him. This should be a good game for him, and I'm happy these guys are coming to town on a day where Nelson is injured, and two others sit out.
Oh, we're going to get screwed. We always suck ass when Bosh isn't playing. D12 will abbuse us downlow, and Grant Hill, and Jameer Nelson should do some damage also..We need to win this one because we're on a 4 game losing streak, but I dont see us winning against a good team with Bosh not in the lineup. I wont be watching it though. Ive got basketball practice from 8-10.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CB4AllStar @ Dec 13 2006, 04:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Oh, we're goping to get screwed. We always suck ass when Bosh isn't playing. D12 will abbuse us downlow, and Grant Hill, and Jameer Nelson should do some damage also..I need to win this one because we're on a 4 game losing streak, but I dont see us winning against a good team with Bosh not in the lineup. I wont be watching it though. Ive got basketball practice from 8-10.</div>Jameer Nelson won't do much damage because he won't be playing today, but Hill and Howard will. Milicic off the bench is going to be alot to handle for the Raptors also. I think we should be able to run this game on the inside, and dominate the paint. I am hoping Redick gets some PT tonight since we are so short on players suddenly.
Howard destroys us when bosh IS playing, so when he isn't...well let's just say it won't be entertaining for Raptor fans. Less than 20 rebounds from Howard will surprise me...if the Raps wanna keep it close someone's gonna have to step it up big time. Not talking 15 points, I'm talking about a huge game. Otherwise I see your guys' Magic taking this one with ease.
Itll be a hard one to rough out, but I dont know, it doesn't seem likely. We are 5-17 w/o Bosh alltime. But look for a big game from Peterson if we should win this. We might be able to do some healing on the damage Howard will do, but I dont know about Hill, our perimete defense sucks.
Good news for Magic fans, we get to see more of Ariza today as he is in the starting lineup which is awesome. He has been playing well enough for a starting nod. And great opening move coming down low to start off the game. Nice player movement by Battie, and nice pass by Howard.
whoa, Andrea "Il Mago" Bargnani had a monster game. 23 points, and like 6 3 pointers that was an amazing feat. Raptors did very good defnsively, as they held the Magic to 84 points. Rasho also had a decent game with 10 boards, 6 points, and 2 steals, and really killed Dwight Howard today, Rasho was looking like a real starting center today.Ford was Ford, he is a very consistent player. Wow what happened to Grant Hill? He didnt play at all in the finals curcial parts of the 4th. Plus Brian Hill didnt put Dwight Howard till the finals minutes of the 4th )around 5 minutes) in which we went like on a scoring run
dissapointing loss. arroyo did a great job keeping us in the game, but fatigue and injuries really caught up with us. this is like our 5th game in 7 days. with nelson, turkoglu, bogans out and grant hill not 100% tonight, we were really struggling to put up points. it was a really ugly game. and it'll probably be even uglier tomorrow against the bobcats, on national TV. but this happens. every team goes on a lil losing streak, but will bounce back. once the magic get their players back, notably nelson and turkoglu and hill 100%, we'll be straight.redick got some really good looks tonight, but he couldnt sink them in. but this was pretty much his 1st REAL GAME without garbage minutes. so I didnt expect MUCH of him, but I wanted to see atleast 1 shot go in...lolI'm not TOO worried right now. but it was an ugly loss tonight
Impressed by your pre game write ups valo, keep up the great work. Oh and just as a little reminder, you were completely right about Boston this year :happy0144:
