Archive for January, 2010

Kelly Dwyer of the Yahoo blog Ball Don’t Lie had some interesting thoughts about Orlando’s struggles. He criticizes Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy. And this takes me to a place I haven’t been in a while. A place that tells me to criticize Stan Van Gundy. He needs to be playing Ryan Anderson(notes) more. Anderson shoots nearly as well from long range as Rashard, scores more, turns it over about the same amount, rebounds way better, and passes the same. I’m not going to tell you that he creates his shot better than Rashard, but with Rashard refusing to [...]

  The Orlando Magic played better but it wasn’t enough as they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers 98-92 on Monday night. Head Coach Stan Van Gundy says that the Magic did show some improvement. “We showed a little improvement. We showed in spots, but that’s the problem,” said coach Stan Van Gundy. “We are too streaky and not solid enough over the course of the game right now. But we did play better than we have in a while, which I guess is good. “But when you have played better and you have a loss, it’s not a very [...]

The Orlando Magic played with more energy, were more aggressive and gave a much better all-around effort, but still came up short, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers 98-92. There were some good signs for the Magic, but they still couldn’t get the job done. Dwight Howard led the Magic with 24 points and 12 rebounds. Shannon Brown had a career-high 22 points to lead the Lakers. It was Orlando’s seventh loss in their last nine games.

It wasn’t a very good first quarter for the Magic but they did have one big time highlight – beautiful passing from Vince Carter to Matt Barnes to Dwight Howard who threw it down. (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.)

The Orlando Magic will take on the Los Angeles Lakers for the first time since the 2009 NBA Finals. You can read about the game here. Due to Orlando’s recent struggles, there isn’t as much hype for the matchup as expected. “Reminiscing usually means fond memories,” J.J. Redick said. “That wasn’t really fond … a bitter feeling.” The Magic meet the Lakers at Staples Center for the first time since L.A. beat them in the NBA Finals. The Lakers won it 4 games to 1 — and it looks as if they’ve put even more distance between themselves and the [...]

After participating in the last three dunk contests, Dwight Howard has decided not to participate in the 2010 competition. Howard, the 2008 winner and 2009 runner-up, will give way to defending champion Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks, Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Shannon Brown and either DeMar DeRozan or Toronto or Eric Gordon of the Los Angeles Clippers. Dwight Howard has good reasons not to enter the conest. It’s no surprise that Howard won’t compete this year. He’s said the contest takes up a lot of energy that could be used later in the season and [...]

In a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers will play host the Orlando Magic on Monday night. The Lakers defeated the Magic 4 games to 1 to win the NBA Championship. The Magic are reeling. They have lost six of their last eight games (including their last two) and were blown out by the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday and the Portland Trail Blazers Friday. The Magic have a lot more questions than answers right now. Several media outlets have discussed Dwight Howard’s struggles, Vince Carter’s poor shooting and now Rashard Lewis has publicly stated that he [...]

Yesterday, HTD linked Josh Robbins story saying that NBA defenses have caught up to Dwight Howard’s limited offensive game. You can find that story here. Today, Robbins added to his story with comments about how teams defend Howard from various players and coaches. “The guys that have been able to neutralize him can do one of two things. In Boston’s case, they’re big and physical and they play under him and they try to root him off his sweet spot, which is in the paint. The other thing is if you’re long and quick like [ Joakim] Noah from Chicago, [...]

Marc Stein of ESPN.com thinks that Orlando could be a potential destination for Gilbert Arenas. The Magic are also dealing with their own issues these days, struggling to live up to lofty expectations after last season’s trip to the NBA Finals and a busy offseason of roster reshaping that gave Orlando – even after parting ways with Hedo Turkoglu – what many observers consider to be the deepest team in the league. There would inevitably be questions about the Magic’s ability to make room for another ball-dominating big name when they’re still struggling to blend newcomer Vince Carter when All-Star [...]