Source: Nelson to be active for Magic

Magic point guard Jameer Nelson isn’t expected to play in Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight against the Lakers, although the plan is to activate and have him dress out, sources tell the Sentinel. The chances of him playing in the series is slim.

Nelson has been trying to come back sinice Feb. 19 shoulder surgery.

He has been ahead of schedule in his rehab and has been feverishly trying to persuade the team that he is ready, participating in his first practice Tuesday in Orlando and in Wednesday’s workout in L.A.

It looked like he had a chance to play but apparently the club deemed the risk too great for the all-star who hasn’t played since injuring his right shoulder Feb. 3 in Orlando against the Dallas Mavericks.

Activating him is nothing crazy.

Im excited, I think this is necessary and huge for the Magic. SVG had the final say so and disclosed his decision just recently that Nelson will indeed play. He will eat AJ’s minutes behind starter Rafer Alston. SVG is a great coach. He is using Jameer to mess up Lakers’ defense and have a full 4 good shooters out instead of Alston (no disrespect tho, hello.. we would not be here without Alston). SVG will then understand the special circumstances and lower/higher Nelsons’ minutes as his play dictates.
I think Nelson will be O.K. tonight, and hopefully shoot good ’s like last playoffs. This is not a 100 Nelson, but hopefully his play catches up as fast as he recovers and further reason to add to why the Magic should win.

I love how NBA TV gets it tentatively right like 2 weeks before Orlando Sentinel, and even ESPN the premier Magic haters got it tentatively right today a few hours before OS.

To be fair, Bianchi from OS had a blog piece wanting Nelson to play which I wholeheartedly agree with.

Id be ready to arleady give him the starting job if he didnt tail off as the game went on. Id prolly still recommend Alston starting, and Nelson is the backup. And to put it back to normal substitution patterns. I suspect SVG wanted to see Nelson in an extended look. Now he will decide who to start and play the 30+ mins as starter, and the 20-ish as backup.
I would complain alittle, because I didnt like having an equal split of mins/quarters for PGs like that b.c. it really does take Alston out of flow and he is the best defender of the Magic PGs, but that whole game was lost on the fact the Magic were outrebounded, and did not play defense in the paint as Lakers got more than half of their points from the paint. Howard and Lewis laid the mother of all eggs, but these are the two most important players, stick with the gameplan and be more aggresive, so the Lakers reel back and have to adjust.

Wonder if SVG ever thought about it? Playing Alston at PG and Nelson at SG, Pietrus guards Kobe, and the two PGs can hopefully create more, and force the pick and rolls more effectively for themselves and Turk.

I cant exactly remember which offensive plays the Magic employed successfully against the Lakers in the regular season since it was so long ago. But, I think Nelson’s pick and roll play was a majority offensive play for the games. It should be re-utilized. Fish is too old, Kobe might but would waste alot of energy, and Ariza leaving Turk leaves Turk a smaller defender to further mismatch. Nelson, Turk pick and rolls, with plenty of passes in transistion to Dwight or Dwight in a roll. When they stop doubling or tripling Dwight, let Dwight run the play for a bucket or pass out.