<div align="center"> Orlando Magic @ Suns Date: Monday December 13th TV: NBALP, WRBW Coach Johnny Davis Probable Starters ( Steve Francis PG, Cuttino Mobely SG, Grant Hill SF, Dwight Howard PF, Tony Battie C) Sixth Man Hidayet Turkoglu SG/SF Coach Mike Dantoni Probable Starters " target="_blank">http://www.nba.com/media/playerfile/amare_stoudemire"></a> ( Steve Nash PG, Q Rich SG, JJ SF, Matrix PF, Amare C) Sixth Man Leandro Barbosa PG MVP Steve Francis / Amare Stoudemire Projected Stats Steve Franics 25 points, 10 asissts, 8 rebounds Amare Stoudemire 32 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists.</div> Why are they so key Amare is currently averaging a league high of 30.7 points going into this game tonight. He has been key in helping his team to the top of the Pacific conference standings. He is only .3 rebounds away from averaging a double double, and is a monster who I expect to dominate Battie and the Magic in the post in the absence of Cato. Steve Francis on the other hand is coming off a huge game against the Lakers last night and a double double he is looking to carry his momentum into this game with him, and with a name like Stevey Franchise oyu can always expect him to be key on a teams win or lose. I think that he needs to hold on to the ball no question he will fill up the stat sheet, but he needs to hold on to the ball. Dont Look for to much Magic from... IR 55 Andrew DeClercq IR 7 Michael Bradely IR 13 Kelvin Cato Magic Keys... * Double teams in this game we will need to have a lot of double teams on players such as Amare and possibly the Matrix at times. This will leave shooter such as Q and JJ open for a little while we need to be quick with the rotations or we will get beat all day in this area. * Get some baord the Suns have nearly two guys averaging double doubles in Matrix and Amare unless we can have our big guys rebound equally to them we will lose this game. Like we lost the Lakers game when we where killed on the boards as Mihm had 13 on us and Howard only 8. Leo's Prediction I think we will fall behind early by double digits. Make a little run in the third quarter like we always seemt o do, but in the end I see us all being dissapppointed as we drop two in a row in a 98-90 lose to the Suns todya. I think that Howard will have a big scoring night on the under sized Matrix, but will not get the rebounds we need from him.
Battie is going to be abused in this game. I hope for the Magic to win, but I don't think it's going to happen. Suns will take this one, 98-86.
A back-to-back game for the Magic...this is really a tough one. If we can get more boards and don't get into foul trouble early in the game, we will not be losing much. Hope Suns will get into foul trouble instead of us I think Francis will be the man of the match for Magic and we'll lose by 6...
I think the Magic are going to lose by a lot unfortunately. We won't have any answers for Amare, but hopefully Dwight can get a lot of touches and have a very productive night.
think we can keep it close, aslong as we dont drop a to a big suns lead 1st half. I reckon about 6pts.
This is my NBA Finals for this year , anyways some facts about this match.. these teams are 1st and 2nd in fastbreak ppg... Orlando is called the Suns of the east.. and I just love this.. Suns are my 2nd fav team, because Amare went to my high school.. and this team is so good this year.. I knew it was going to be good since they got Nash of course..anyway back to the topic.. This is gonna be such a high scoring game.. big games from everyone from both teams, whoever plays some good defense for the longest strech wins. Orlando by 4.
We lost by 21. It was a close game until the 4th, when the Suns broke out and our defense collapsed. Dwight sucked on offense, 2-10, only 7 pts, but he got 18 boards. He missed 2 dunks. Marion blocked 2 or 3 of his shots early and he was startled the rest of the game. I don't understand Johnny Davis at all. He misses his first 4 shots and you keep going to him, but he hits 3-4 easily and we never go to him the rest of the game. Oh well. Hopefully the Magic can hang in with the Spurs.
I don't know, were they just too tired from the previous game and couldn't keep up with the fast playing Suns? Phoenix had 28 fast break points, we just 15. They also dominated the paint with 56 points in the paint (we miss the inside presence of Cato), we got 30, still we controlled our boards this time better than against the Lakers, especially Dwight was great. But yes, I agree with sportsrock, he only averages 7 field goal attempts and doesn't get more even when he's hot and then against Phoenix, he gets more, struggles and still gets more? But everyone on the team struggled, the team was only .383 from the field and .141 from behind the arc. A few good things so, we kept our turnovers low (onyl 11, we average about 16 per game) and we controlled our boards better than against the Lakers. And from the box score it looks that Kasun showed some more promise, hitting 3-3 and 2-2 from the line, grabbing 5 rebounds and 1 block, but also 5 fouls in 11 minutes.
too bad Battie was in foul trouble and D12 was not shooting well. But well effort to grab the most rebounds in the game by D12. We just couldn't contain Suns inside and outside. Nice ball game in the first 3 quarters. Spurs next.......
To be honest we did great for 3 / 4 of the match, considering coming off a hard loss the night before, and suns intentionally played to that weakness. Suns are THE team of the moment, yeah 21 pts seems like a bad loss, but considering the rest of the match, missing Cato who would have helped keep score down a bit more, it was a decent game. Suns are looking to not only win the west but take the finals i guess, so we should take heart in that fact that only 3 out of 21 teams have beaten them.
I haven't even had the time to catch any Magic games lately, but from the box score it looks like we were beaten at our own game. The Suns are a good team, they have turned a lot of heads. I still don't think they are NBA Champion material due to their lack of big men/defense however they have obviously improved a lot from last year. (They are basically like us with a better true point guard)
This is the first time all year the Magic have lost two in a row. Oh well, we knew it had to happen eventually. If we had Cato and Turk had a hot hand, this game might have ended differently.
Yeah Coranar, Kasun looked very good on offense, completing 2 3 pt plays(very good passes from i think Francis might I add). The only problem about Kasun was Amare would continously beat him down the court and get easy layups and dunks. Garrity was the same way. This is a wakeup call. Honestly, I'm surprised the game was even close towards the end of the 3rd with the way they were shooting and the way we were shooting. Hopefully we can keep the game close against the Spurs.
