<div align="center"> Charlotte Bobcats: 8-21 Orlando Magic: 16-14 Date: Friday, January 7th Time: 7:00 PM TV: C-SET, NBALP Previous Games: Wolves @ Bobcats 102-84 (WIN) Sonics @ Magic 105-87 (WIN) <font color="darkorange"><font size="1">Coach Bernie Bickerstaff</font></font> C - <font color="darkorange">Primoz Brezec</font> (11.5 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 1.1 APG) PF - <font color="darkorange">Emeka Okafor</font> (15.8 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 1.0 APG) SF - <font color="darkorange">Gerald Wallace</font> (11.1 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 1.7 APG) SG - <font color="darkorange">Kareem Rush</font> (5.7 PPG, 1.4 RPG, 0.8 APG) PG - <font color="darkorange">Brevin Knight</font> (7.3 PPG, 2.3 RPG, 9.3 APG) <font size="4">VS</font> <font color="blue"><font size="1">Coach Johnny Davis</font></font> C - <font color="blue">Kelvin Cato</font> (8.3 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 1.0 APG) PF - <font color="blue">Dwight Howard</font> (10.3 PPG, 9.9 RPG, 1.2 APG) SF - <font color="blue">Grant Hill</font> (19.3 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 3.7 APG) SG - <font color="blue">Cuttino Mobley</font> (16.5 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 1.8 APG) PG - <font color="blue">Steve Francis</font> (22.0 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 6.9 APG) BOBCATS - <font color="darkorange">Keith Bogans</font> Predicted Stats: 14 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists MAGIC - <font color="blue">Hedo Turkoglu</font> Predicted Stats: 12 points, 3/4 3PT, 3 rebounds BOBCATS - <font color="darkorange">Emeka Okafor</font> Predicted Stats: 20 points, 12 rebounds, 1 assist MAGIC - <font color="blue">Steve Francis</font> Predicted Stats: 26 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists</div> Emeka Okafor and Dwight Howard...two rookies with alot of potential, both great on the glass, good inside scorers, nice defense. What's the difference? One is fresh out of high school and playing alongside Steve Francis and Grant Hill...and the other is from a national champion UConn, and is the franchise of the Charlotte Bobcats. These two should be having career games against each other...but lately for the Bobcats, there are other players stepping up, including Kareem Rush and Gerald Wallace, which should make things more difficult for the Magic tonight. The Bobcats need to feed Okafor early, and let him work the boards. Kareem has to find his shot as well, and Wallace needs to play like he did against the Wolves. The Cats shocked everyone with their win against Minny, putting up the question: are these Bobcats a good team? The record may not show it...yet...but in the East, there's always room for a playoff spot for a team under .500...but to do this, the Cats need to start winning...NOW. As for the Magic, they're less fortunate...being that they were hot at the beginning of the season, they've cooled down a bit and are now watching the Heat destroy the East. Worse...they are in the same division, let alone the same conference. Against the Cats, the Magic need to penetrate and kick out for threes, that is...if Hedo is playing significant minutes tonight. Otherwise, we all can safely assume that this is Francis' game, mixed with a little Hill and Mobley...wow, Orlando fans...doesn't it sound great to name more than one star? If the Bobcats can keep up with the Magic up until the third, it could be a close game. Okafor will have a 2-game double-double streak...unfortunately, it's not 20+ games...but it'll do. You could see an offensive onslaught by the Magic in the 4th, where they could blow out the Cats...but I'm thinking this will be a fight to the end, where Charlotte will eventually give it up and miss their last few shots. The Magic are starting to catch fire again, and after their win against Seattle, this home game against a bad road team, the Bobcats, should be easy...but don't take this Charlotte team for granted. However, the Magic should take this one to the bank, 92-81.
I think the Magic should win this game, but I have a bad feeling for us. I think we will just take the Bobcats for granted and play down to their level again. I do think that Dwight will outrebound Okafor tonight though. I hope we win, but we lost to them before in Charlotte and I think the same might happen. We are 1-3 against the teams in our division so far and we need to change that around and fast. If we can maintain the same defensive intensity that we had against the Sonics, we can win, if we don't, we will lose.
It has become very quiet here... I don't think we take this one for granted: We lost the first meeting. In addition we're coming from a great win and we have something to prove, so do the Bobcats come from a great win against the Wolves and maybe Bogans wants to prove s.th. as well against his former team (since this is his first game against us since the trade). Cato might not play but Battie is an okay replacement and should be able to defend Okafor well. We need to play some tough defense and Francis needs another great game. Magic by 12.
This should be a exciting game though the Bobcats are not the most incredible team in the NBA you have to look at the story inside the game Bogans back in Orlando paying the team that traded him he will be trying to prove something to the orginization to night kind of make a point like you should have kept me, and if he makes that point I will actually be happy, because it was another gay move by the team to trade him for a guy who is currently on the IR for us and not doing much when he is off it. Now who do I think will win the game Orlando of course, but I hope Bogans dominates our defense all nights just to show Wiesbord how stupid his move was to trade him. Every guy we got in the draft the last year Doc Rivers was here is gone now thats kind of sad it just goes to show when a new coach/ management comes in there looking to build there own legacy and a lot of times ship out moves made by the other front office/ coaching people before them. Anyway as far as final scores go Magic by eight.
We just have to play a good game and not make poor mistakes that we have been making. If we can improve off the perfomance against seatle we should take this game. Francis needs to start out big, Howard will want to prove something and hopefully we get some good stats from the rest of the players.
That was nice, a great team effort. PG and hedo really got stuck in and had great games. Starting to be a little disappointed with Cat, hes not getting up on offense as much as i expect. He really could be a average 20pt a game but he just isnt sparking atm, but then again we have hedo on form atm so thats really where the 2 guard points coming from i guess.
