The Orlando Magic are a respectable 18-14 at home, including 5-1 since the Francis deal. We are the worst team in the NBA on the road this year at 6-29(counting tonights game). We are currently on our franchise long 16 consecutive road losing streak. We have just lost 2 to the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Bobcats on the road, 2 teams that are below us. Do we chalk up the ineffectiveness to win on the road to youth? Will it change anytime at all this year/next year?
I think that our team's inability to win on the road has a lot to do with our team's inexperience and youth on our team. Dwight Howard, Darko Milicic, Jameer Nelson, DeShawn Stevenson, Trevor Ariza and Carlos Arroyo are all young players that have had to step into new roles this season. Over time, as our players gain chemistry and start adjusting to their new roles our team's success on the road will improve and we will become a much more consistent team.
It showed last night, they played hard and got it together. The key to the team is defense. If you have been watching the blocks and steals have created most of the points for us and keeps the other team guessing. I think on the road we get away from that and our blocks and steals go down, not to mention an increase in turnovers and missed shots. The philly game showed that even with turnovers defense ruled that game, blocks and steals helped the Magic secure their first road win in 2 months. I think with an offseaon training camp this team will get to fix those problems of not playing together and not knowing each other. The health of the team was one of the reason we started so slow. With grant, jameer, and dooling out a lot we missed the chance to gel. I think over the last couple weeks we have had the same units coming in and they know what they have and what they have to do. So it provides stability to the roster and lets everyone play their own game rather than filling in for someone like Grant. All i can say is this team is someone else now, we have still have a losing record after the francis trade but we are fun to watch and more than anything they like to play together as a team.
