Orlando Magic News for February 1st: Jameer Nelson and Mickael Pietrus Listed as Day-To-Day; Dwight Howard, the Frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year

• Magic's Jameer Nelson, Mickael Pietrus not expected to miss time because of minor injuries
  Brian Schmitz shares pertinent news.

  Magic General Manager Otis Smith said Monday that point guard Jameer Nelson and small forward Mickael Pietrus are listed day-to-day, but he doesn't expect either player to miss playing time. Nelson and Pietrus sustained minor injuries Sunday night in the Magic's 91-86 win against Detroit.

• Behind the Box Score, where the Lakers are awesome/infuriating
  Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie recaps the Orlando Magic's victory against the Detroit Pistons at the "house of horrors" according to head coach Stan Van Gundy, also commonly known as The Palace of Auburn Hills.

  Perhaps my least-favorite game of the year. The refs didn't call a thing, as cutters were bumped and post-up moves were denied due to more and more bumping, and the pace was ultra-slow. The game competitive, after the first quarter, but made terrible by the snail's pace and the 1999-level style of refereeing.

• Anthony Johnson steps in at point guard
  Van Gundy praises Anthony Johnson, the team's third point guard, for being ready when the Magic needed him in last night's game.

  "I thought J-Will was playing well, but I thought he looked really really tired halfway through the third quarter and then I just thought A.J. played well," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. "I left A.J. out there. A good job by him especially like you say that he hadn’t played in so long."

More after the jump.

• The bright side of Vince Carter’s slump
  Austin Burton of Dime Magazine notes that there's a bright side to Vince Carter's slump. No, really.

  If you missed that, it sounds like Vince Carter — a.k.a. "Vince Cancer" to some of his harshest critics — has become the positive veteran presence people thought he never could be. It sounds like he’s become a leader and a good locker-room guy, even when his game has been off. It sounds like he’s playing through injuries after all those years of being labeled soft. And I know it’s more than "sounds like," because Vince was doing the same things in New Jersey, he just didn’t get any credit.

• DPOY Decision ‘10: The Halfway Mark
  Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference gathers every defensive metric he can find and shows, using compelling evidence, that Dwight Howard deserves to repeat as the Defensive Player of the Year. And to add, the numbers show there's almost no argument.

• Your champs, in your eyes
  Kelly Dwyer with some words of wisdom for you to heed.

  If you are a fan of a good team, a very good team, you need to appreciate that noise to no end. Not just because of what other bits of fandom are going through, and not just because you might not get a chance to root for a winner for long stretches of your fandom, but because your team needs a bit of appreciation.
  
  Because your team wins games, more often than not. Because your team could win a championship — a championship! This doesn't mean you turn a blind eye to the foibles amongst these fables — these 60-win fables — but this has to mean you appreciate more than you fret.

• A brief word on match ups, playoffs, and trades

  Peachtree Hoops looks at how the Atlanta Hawks match up with the rest of the Eastern contenders, including the Magic. Orlando's won all 3 of its meetings with Atlanta this season and 6 in a row dating back to last season.

• For those who missed it, here's Carter's lone points against the Pistons. Quality, not quantity.