At the end of one, the Magc are playing good basketball, up 33-27. Howard is looking good, having 10 points now, and only one turnover on a travel call. He is passing out of double teams well, and causing the ball to go into motion just fine. He is also getting the other teams bigs into foul trouble here in the first, both Okafor and Brezec have four fouls. He is also playing good defense on everyone. Nelson is playing well again, and showing a big offensive arsenal. He has hit a couple of spot up jumpers from three, has drove to the rim to score, and came off of picks to shoot the straight away shots. He is really playing just fine ball tonight.For the Bocats:Felton is passing well, and pushing the ball as he can. Five assists already in the first half, finding Carroll a couple of times, and everyone else on the team. He is drivng well and getting to the free throw line, so far 3-3 from the free throw line. His shooting could be better, but everything else is looking good offensively.Carroll is again shooting well, his shooting has really gotten good lately, especially since Felton took over the point pretty much full time. He has 10 points, and a couple of three's made.
It's half time, and the Magic cooled off a bit, but are still playing well. We are up 56-50. The Bobcats did what every team this year has done, went to zone against us because they could not match up well at all against us. The zone gave us problems at first, but we figured it out and started doing much better. Had lots of penetration with the ball, and used the baseline cuts during penetration alot to cancel out that zone defense they were running against us. It really worked later on in the quarter, got Ariza and Howard on a couple of lobs behind the zone. -Dwight Howard is playing very well tonight. His offensive game has picked up. So far he has 16 points and 7 rebounds on the night at the half. He is doing really well for us on both sides of the court. Howard also hit his first career three point shot, on an end of the half throw up.-Nelson after a strong first quarter, did not shoot or play like that in the second quarter. He is still at 10 points, and messed up one or two passes, one a lob to Howard who got behind the zone. If that pass was there, Howard would have had easy points.-Ariza is playing awesome again, and bringing nothing but energy. He is hustling in the open court, cutting baselin against the zone, and rebounding well. He has 8 points and 6 rebounds tonight, including two on offense. -Hedo is shooting well on the spot up, and passing well. He has lost control of the ball a couple of times on the drive and had to pick up his dribble, but hasn't turned the ball over. His defense is good.- Redick has played terrible for the most part. Minus a transition jumper, he hasnt dont much on offense, and is doing even worse on defense. He is out of position alot, switching onto people that are to fast for him like Carroll, and loosing his man alot. His slowness on the defensive end has caused him to pick up 3 quick fouls in 2 minutes.edit: It's now the second half, and Dwight Howard has another straight up block on Okafor while guarding him, and then denied him the ball. Howard is really eating Okafor's lunch tonight.
The magic had their best defensive game 2nite.DWIGHT HOWARD nailed a 3 at the halftime buzzer, first time in his career!!!!!but the real key component tonite was their defense. the cats shot only 34 percent in the first half. in the second half, they shot 23.8 percent and scored 24 points in the second half.
