Preview: Cleveland Cavaliers @ Orlando Magic

The Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers will meet for the first time since game 6 of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals. The Magic won game 6 and closed out the series 4-2. Almost every pundit picked Cleveland to win the series but the Magic pulled out the victory and advanced to the NBA Finals.

Both teams have been struggling. The Magic are 6-2 but have not played solid defense at all this season and the defense has become a real point of concern for Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy. The Cavaliers have started the season just 4-3.

Both teams have made major changes. The Magic acquired Vince Carter in a trade during the off-season while the Cavaliers traded for Shaquille O’Neal, who spent four seasons with the Magic.

The Magic got a 92-80 win over the Charlotte Bobcats last night after holding the Bobcats to just 10 points in the final quarter. The Cavaliers, on the other hand, got an easy win over the Knicks on Friday night. They haven’t played since then.

The Magic will once again be without Ryan Anderson (ankle) and Rashard Lewis (suspension), but Guard Vince Carter (ankle) is expected to start.

The game starts at 8:00 pm EST and will be shown on Sun Sports. If you don’t get Sun Sports, you’re in luck tonight – ESPN will also be broadcasting the game. As always, if you can’t watch the game, you can hear it locally on WDBO 580 AM and in Spanish on WONQ AM 1030.

The Line: PK

Starters

Orlando

Dwight Howard
Brandon Bass
Matt Barnes
Vince Carter
Jameer Nelson

Cleveland

Shaquille O’Neal
J.J. Hickson
LeBron James
Anthony Parker
Mo Williams

Last Meeting: These two teams last met in game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Magic dominated the game, winning 103-90 behind Dwight Howard’s 40 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 assists. LeBron James had 25 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists in a losing effort. Rashard Lewis added in 18 points for the Magic.

Season Series: The Magic won last season’s series 2 games to 1 and took the playoff series 4 games to 2.

The two teams first met on January 29 with the Magic winning 99-88 behind double-doubles from Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu. In the team’s second meeting on March 17, this time, in Cleveland, the Cavs were aided by several questionable calls. Down by 2 with fewer than 10 seconds to play, Dwight Howard was called for a 3-second violation. Both Stan Van Gundy and Howard were upset about the call. After that, Courtney Lee was called for a questionable foul on James and the Cavs won 97-93. In the final meeting of the season, Orlando dominated the Cavs in every aspect of the game, winning 116-87.

In the postseason, the Cavs got out to a 15-point halftime lead in game 1. The Magic closed the gap and eventually won on a Rashard Lewis 3-pointer with 14.7 seconds left. In game 2, the Magic fell behind by 23, but roared back and took a 2-point on a Turkoglu jumper with a second left before LeBron James made a long, well-covered buzzer-beating 3-pointer to win. The Magic then held serve at home, winning games 3 and 4 before the Cavs took game 5 behind LeBron James’ triple double. Orlando wrapped up the series with a 13-point win in game 6.

In 9 total games (playoffs and regular season) vs. the Magic last season, LeBron James averaged almost 36 points per game, including 38.5 ppg in the playoffs

About the Magic: Orlando survived a comeback attempt by the Charlotte Bobcats after taking a 35-23 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Bobcats got within 5 but the Magic really turned up the defense in the final quarter, allowing the Bobcats to scored just 10 points and make just 4 field goals.

Orlando did not do much on the offensive end after a 35-point first quarter. They scored just 57 points the rest of the way, including a 36-point second half and a 16-point fourth quarter. The Magic did improve on their shooting from Sunday’s night woeful performance against the Bobcats, shooting 47% from the field and making nine 3-pointers.

Magic Guard Vince Carter was just 5-of-16 from the field, but he look okay playing on his injured ankle. Carter was not at his best against Cleveland last year, shooting 37.5% and scoring 19 points per game.

About the Cavs: Cleveland comes into the game on four days rest while the Magic must play this game on the second day of a back-to-back. The Cavaliers defeated the Knicks 100-91 on Friday.

The Cavaliers are yet to beat a team with a winning record although they came close last Thursday in an 86-85 home loss to the Bulls. The Cavs went 39-2 at home last season and they have already lost two home games this season.

LeBron James has been his usual self, scoring 26.3 ppg on 51.7% shooting. He is also dishing out 8.0 assists per game and grabbing 7.7 rebounds per game.

Shaquille O’Neal has been somewhat of a disappointment for Cleveland this season, averaging 11.1 points per game 7.4 rebounds per game. Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy is not ready to write off Shaq and knows the big man can still present a lot of problems.

“Shaq is still a guy that’s very hard to defend one on one and he’s still a good post defender one on one. So yeah he’s a big difference.”

Anderson Varejao has played better this season, grabbing 9.4 rebounds per game. Mo Williams is the second-leading scorer, averaging 15.7 ppg.

The Cavaliers have had some trouble defending the pick-and-roll and that is one of Orlando’s specialties.

The Cavaliers struggled with the Magic last year because the Magic were able to spread them out and get a lot of open looks from downtown. In fact, in Orlando’s victory in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Magic hit 62 3-pointers, tying the NBA record for most 3-pointers made in a six-game series.

Van Gundy believes that with the injuries to Anderson and the suspension of Lewis, it will be very hard to match that.

“We can’t really spread them out the way we did last year like we want to.”

That should present some problems for the Magic. With Bass in the lineup, they don’t have four 3-point shooters on the floor like they did against Cleveland in the playoffs, but if they don’t step up their play on defense like they did in the fourth quarter Tuesday night, the Magic will be in a lot of trouble tonight.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)