Orlando Magic @ New Orleans Hornets

Yardbarker.com

The Orlando Magic look to win their 10th straight game when take on the New Orleans Hornets Wednesday night.

The Magic are coming off a victory over the Dallas Mavericks Saturday night. They used a 28-7 run to start the fourth quarter to put the Mavs away. The Magic are now 25-12 and tied for third with the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference. The Hornets, who won their first eight games and got off to an 11-1 start are now just 22-16. They are currently the sixth seed and sit 9.5 games behind the San Antonio Spurs in the Southwest Division.

The two teams split their season series last year with each team winning at home.

The Hornets are 28th in pace (89.5), 22nd in offensive rating (104.7), and sixth in defensive rating (102.7).

The Magic are 18th in pace (92.2), 13th in offensive rating (107.3), and fourth in defensive rating (101.3).

The game will be shown locally on FSN Florida. As always, if you can’t watch the game, you can listen on the radio – in English on AM 580 WDBO and in Spanish on AM 1270 WRLZ.

Tip off from the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana, is scheduled for 8:00 pm EST.

The Line: Orlando – 4.0

Starters:

New Orleans Hornets

Emeka Okafor
David West
Trevor Ariza
Marco Belinelli
Chris Paul

Orlando Magic

Dwight Howard
Brandon Bass
Hedo Turkoglu
Jason Richardson
Jameer Nelson

For the Magic, Malik Allen is questionable with a sprained left ankle while Daniel Orton (left knee surgery) and Jason Williams (arthritis in feet) are out indefinitely.

The officials will be Steve Javie, Brent Barnaky and Kevin Fehr.

Opponent To Watch: Chris Paul, G – The league’s best point guard is having another fantastic season. Paul has led his team to a 22-16 record despite having a team that is lacking in talent. Paul is averaging 16.7 points, 9.7 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.76 steals per game. His effective field goal percentage is 53.9%, which is a career-high. He’s not putting up the same numbers he was during his historic seasons from 2007-2009 but he’s not far off. Paul has averaged 19.5 points, 8.0 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game in six career games against the Magic.

What To Watch For: The Hornets are the third slowest paced team in the league so look for the Magic to use their scorers and ball handlers to push the pace. The Hornets aren’t a particularly big team with Emeka Okafor, David West and Trevor Ariza up front so the Magic’s lack of size shouldn’t be an issue today. Defense has been a cause for concern as of late – the Mavericks lit the Magic up without Dirk Nowitzki and Caron Butler – so it’d be encouraging to see the Magic shut down a Hornets offense that isn’t very good.

You check out other game notes about the Magic’s game against the Hornets here.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and ESPN 1080′s Magic Insider (http://espn1080.com). Subscribe to his RSS feed, add him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter to follow him daily. You can download the HTD app here).

Tags: Brandon Bass, chris paul, Dwight Howard, emeka okafor, gilbert arenas, hedo turkoglu, j.j. redick, jameer nelson, jason richardson, new orleans hornets, Orlando Magic, ryan anderson, trevor ariza