Orlando Magic News for November 15th - About Last Nite...

More notes from Orlando's victory over Cleveland

• Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon-Journal is one of the most well respected NBA journalists on the planet. He offers his thoughts on last night's game in this post. He points out that even if a foul had been called on Hedo Turkoglu on the last play of the game, the Cavaliers would not have gotten free throws out of it. He also gives the Magic some credit for being a good team, but also attributes some of the Magic's success last night to poor Cleveland defense:

  Now, the Magic have a great offensive style. Howard is unguardable, Nelson and Arroyo are too quick for any of the Cavs guards, and when the Cavs help inside on drives or Howard the Magic have 3-point shooters everywhere. They have a chance to be a great team. 31 assists in 40 baskets for Orlando. Part of it is fantastic offensive basketball. But the Cavs are ranked 25th in field goal defense in the NBA, last year they were in the top seven or eight all year. That is where they must improve.

• No team outscored the other team by more than 3 points in any given quarter.
• Visual proof (from NBA.com's highlights) that Keith Bogans had his number called in the clutch last night.
• LeBron James isn't happy that the Magic beat his Cavaliers last night, partially due to a controversial no-call at the end of the game. I respect that he refuses to blame the officials for the final result. From Brian Schmitz's recap in the Sentinel:

  "[Turkoglu] got some of the ball, but he had part of my arm as well," James said. "I never get into referee battles or player battles. I think we had opportunities to win the ballgame and they made more plays than us."

• This gameflow, courtesy of PopcornMachine, really gives a good feel for just how close the game was last night.

And now, more general stuff:

• It didn't take long for Dwight Howard to reach the top of the league's dunking leaderboard. Of Dwight's 67 made field goals this year, 33 have been dunks. Wow.
• Bob Vander Weide is officially in charge of the Magic. He takes over for Rich DeVos.