VS. Who: Orlando Magic vs. San Antonio Spurs When: 8:30 PM Where: San Antonio TV: NBALP and WRBW <u><font size="4">Starting Lineups</font></u> <u> <font size="3">Orlando Magic</font></u> ( Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Grant Hill, Dwight Howard, Tony Battie) <u><font size="3">San Antonio Spurs</font></u> ( Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, Rasho Nesterovic) <font size="4"> Magic Keys To The Game </font> <u>?Control Duncan-</u> If the Magic want to stay in this game, they have to control Tim Duncan. He is capable of winning games on his own and we need to make sure he doesn?t do this. Dwight Howard and Tony Battie need to slow him down or get him into foul trouble for the Magic to win this game. <u> ?Limit Turnovers-</u> We can?t turnover the ball 20 times if we want to beat the Spurs. They are one of the best teams in the NBA and they will take advantage of our turnovers. Steve Francis averages almost 5 turnovers per game and he will have to do a good job keeping the ball in this game. <u><font size="3">My Prediction</font></u> I think the Magic will pull off a win in this game. I can?t see them losing 3 straight and go .500 on this road trip. It will be a close game and the Magic will win in the last minutes of the fourth quarter. I think the score will be 106-102. This should be a great game and I look forward to watching it. Prediction- Magic win 106-102 By: MagicFan3
Nice preview. Dwight will have to contain Duncan, but without Cato, I don't think he will be very successful. Bowen will limit Cuttino Mobley, Grant Hill and Hedo Turkoglu's chances. We will have to shoot over 50% from the floor to win this game. With the Spurs D, I don't see that likely. Spurs by 8.
Hm, I heard Tony Parker may not play in the game because of an injury. So Beno may actually get the start at point.
Without Cato, no chance. Duncan will dominate this game. And I agree with sportsrock, we need to shoot a high percentage to win it which is highly unlikely against this defence-orientated team. So I don't see us getting many second-chance points. The only chance we really have is when we can play our running game, but I doubt this as well.
Nice preview, I agree with your "keys to win the game" but like other users have said without Cato, Duncan will dominate (this coming from a rocket fan who had Mo Taylor guarding him)
Tony Parker is a game time decision because of a recent injury he picked up, although Manu expects him to play.
San Antonio may look to slow the game down in this situation. They know the Magic are a fast break team and will look to lure the Magic into playing the moderate tempo game. If the Spurs slow the Magic down, look for them to take advantage of it. Francis, Mobley, Howard, and everyone else must bring their game to the Spurs or expect a losing effort.
half time and down by 6. Think its going well, considering we were down by 13 @ one point. Battie is doing well (VERY well, 12pts!), but stevie needs to hit more from the floor.
Wow I can not believe we are winning this game we are getting killed on the boards 31-27 and Ducan has been dominating 21 points right now to the end of the third 1:27 left, but we are still up by ten. We have shot incredable from the floor and even better from three point range 5-7 from the land of plenty and over 50% from the floor. Mobely has 19, and Francis is having a horrible night from the floor 4-14 but he does have 9 assists. Battie has been replacing Cato very well so far this trip he can not replace Cato in terms of size and keeping his man out of the paint as much despite being a good defender his size against western apponents does not help much. He has been filling up the stat sheet though tonight so far 6-7 from the field 12 points 7 rebounds that is more than decent from a back up center. Bright to Francis' night he is shooting 1.00 percent from three point range 1-1 and 5-5 from the line, and get this 0 TURNOVERS!!! This is probably the biggest reason for us winning we have only had 9 turnover sso far tonight really limiting our turnovers compared to the 18 we had I believe in our loss to the Lakers. Keep this up for one more quarter and we come out of this road trip with a .500 record, but the respect we will have earned this road trip will be huge getting a win over possibly the best team in the league right now. In the Spurs, and hanging in there most of our games outside the Suns one where we broke down to the end. edit: Had this post typed up for a while before I posted it waiting for courtside live to update. Now it is 5 minutes left in the fourth where down by one. We now have 14 turnovers .Francis is 5-17 from the floor pretty bad.
Did Tony Parker play this game? I really thought you guys had this one, good show, at least you gave them a fight.
Yep Parker played, but he wasn't as good as he normally is, so they let the rookie Beno Udrih(I think that's how it's spelled) play the majority of the minutes, including the minutes down the stretch. I do have to say I was very impressed with him. Very tough loss for the Magic, considering we had them beat. I was impressed with some of the moves Dwight Howard made though. He got around TD pretty nicely, he just couldn't make the shot. It will come. Mobley was amazing in that 3rd quarter, I just wish we could have given him the ball more in the 4th. I'm just glad that the west coast road trip is over and we are still in pretty good shape.
