Tonight's Game: Orlando Magic vs. Seattle SuperSonics - Open Thread

by Evan Dunlap on Nov 13, 2007 10:41 AM EST in 2007/2008 Previews

	vs.
0-7		5-2
Amway Arena
7:00 PM
FSN
Probable starters:
Luke Ridnour	PG	Jameer Nelson
Kevin Durant	SG	Keith Bogans
Damien Wilkins	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Chris Wilcox	PF	Rashard Lewis
Robert Swift	C	Dwight Howard

25 words or fewer: The winless SuperSonics come to Orlando to face the Magic and their former teammate, Rashard Lewis.

Know your enemy: Seattle may have a horrible record, but they have lost close games to Phoenix, Utah, and Detroit. In other words, they aren't awful.

Useless information: The SuperSonics left Orlando unhappy after their lone visit last year; Hedo Turkoglu nailed a game-winning jumper for Orlando at the buzzer.

Bullet points:

Tim Povtak wrote this piece about Lewis' history with Seattle for this morning's paper. I have no idea why he calls Lewis a guard/forward. When has 'Shard ever played a guard position? Not last year, and only a fraction of his total minutes the year before that.
Who the heck is going to guard Kevin Durant? He's a 6'10" shooting guard. Rashard and Hedo match up with him size-wise, but they are not good defenders. Keyon Dooling and Keith Bogans are our best on-ball defenders, but they are 6'3" and 6'5", respectively; they aren't tall enough. That leaves Trevor Ariza, an outstanding defender who, at 6'8" matches up with Durant the best. Let's see if he gets more burn tonight.
According to Accuscore, the Magic have a 70% chance of winning tonight.
Dwight had 22 points and 20 rebounds against the Knicks, then followed that up with 33 points and 17 rebounds against the Suns. Considering the Sonics' lack of interior defense, he should post some beastly numbers tonight.
Speaking of beastly, here's a clip of Dwight rejecting Seattle's Luke Ridnour last season.
Chris Wilcox is the SuperSonic who worries me most. He's a big, strong power forward having a career year: 16.3 points and 8.7 rebounds. I wouldn't be surprised if he went for 20/12.
The SuperSonics are 26th in offensive efficiency and 27th in turnover rate. The Magic need to capitalize on this young team's mistakes if they went to win.
Y'know, we could play off Kevin Durant and just let him shoot. He's a miserable .389 from the field this season, and it's taken him 144 shots to score 152 points.

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Ariza

No idea why he is in the dog house and could be the difference tonight in ball stops on their best scorers. Stick Ariza on him all night and make Durant beat the rest of the Magic because no one has done that in a long time save Lebron's Game 5 against Detroit.

You think that a combination of Ariza/JJ/Augustine are on their way out the door? Possibly Outlaw as well?

by evan on Nov 13, 2007 4:12 PM EST reply actions

Re: Ariza

After seeing Trevor play well in significant minutes for two straight games, I doubt he's still in Stan Van Gundy's doghouse. If he keeps this up for the next week or so, there's no doubt in my mind that the Magic will do everything they can to re-sign him this summer. But maybe that's jumping the gun.

J.J. and Auggie seem like they could be bait, but I think the team wants to wait and see on them. I'd actually rather see J.J. go, because he's somewhat redundant; Keith Bogans is a better shooter at the NBA level, and he plays good defense to boot. James, meanwhile, is young, hustles, and plays a position at which we're short on depth.

If anyone is going to go, though, it's Outlaw. The Magic have that injury exception, but they'd have to cut someone to use it, and Bo is the most likely candidate due to his age and declining skill level. He's a prime candidate for community ambassadorship, though, so I'm sure the Magic would keep him around in some capacity.

by Evan Dunlap on Nov 13, 2007 9:57 PM EST up reply actions