Orlando Magic News & Notes

The Orlando Magic won their fifth game in a row by defeating the Raptors in Toronto on Sunday afternoon, 104-96.

See my recap and analysis here.

Vince Carter was heard the boos throughout Sunday’s win at Toronto, but he didn’t mind.

“I enjoy playing in that atmosphere and I enjoy coming back here and just being part of this,” he said. “It was a misconception of the entire thing (his exit). This is where it all started.”

Brian Schmitz has the story here.

Kelly Dwyer goes behind the box score in Orlando’s victory over Toronto.

The go-to story involves Vince Carter(notes), who was an absolute prat in forcing his way out of Toronto. Carter deserves more enmity than any other ex-player in the NBA gets from any other ex-crowd, combined, and that noted go-to story involves him playing well in Toronto. That works, actually; because though Carter shot 9-24, there were probably six shots that rimmed in and out or bounced out while he was fouled (and didn’t see a call). Not VC’s biggest fan, but I can’t slough that off.

So, he played well, despite 24 points for 24 points for Carter. Meanwhile, the Magic essentially got whatever they wanted, and just happened to miss a ton. Same for the Raptors, while we’re at it, but who won? Whose story is this, dangit?

You can find that here.

Brandon Bass has had the same stat line in each of the last two games = “DNP – Coach’s Decision”

“I think we’re a better team with me out there,” Bass said. “But we’re winning, so there’s really nothing I can say.”

Read more on that here.

J.J. Redick knows just how tough this holiday weekend is going to be – the Magic play four games in five nights.

“It’s going to be a real tough holiday weekend for us,’’ Redick said. “We have four games in five nights and it’s four cities in five nights. So it will a challenge for us.’’

John Denton has the story here.

Dwight Howard commented on his meeting with Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy on his official blog.

Stan is a great guy and he’s going to continue to stay on us and I don’t want him to stop that. I just told him that as a team we have a lot of new guys who aren’t used to the way that he coaches and sometimes it’s just a matter of how you deal with them. I can take somebody talking bad to me and him yelling at me or whatever, but you have to deal with certain people different ways. Some of the new guys just aren’t used to having a coach as active as Stan.

I think us talking like that was the best way to handle it. Me being the leader of the team and being able to talk to coach and talk to the team, it was really good. We’re like a family and we’re going to have problems but if we continue to grow we should be great going to the end of the season.

You can read that here.

(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.)