Boston Celtics 109, Orlando Magic 106

Remember earlier this year when Anderson was the starter but always got the quick hook, leading to Bass playing the important minutes in the 4th quarter? They switched roles for this game.

Bass is simply a black hole on offense (nothing, including light and the ball, can escape his grasp), and neither his rebounding nor defense is better than Anderson’s. I’m at a loss to justify his starting spot. But as Evan says in the recap, it’s fine to shoot with the 2nd unit, and that is where Bass belongs. Lord knows I’d rather him be shooting than Arenas on that 2nd unit.

As soon as SVG makes this switch, 1st quarters will no longer be a nightmare for the Magic.

that was a pretty great game. but a few problems. anderson was on fire and we didn’t get him the ball sometimes. that one three pointer by J-rich from about 35 ft away was unnecessary and allen was too open in the final minutes. the D was somewhat terrible. man that Win was sooooo close and yet so far. tough lost tonight. can’t wait for the rematch.

has there been any word on a big man we looking into?

luck huh? so we were lucky to beat boston on x-mas day by 16 and boston beating us by 3 tonight. get outta here. some our players are just struggling. that should be fixed by the next rematch. and them shooting 60% will be long gone.

how much is that knee affecting bass? he just doesn’t seem like the guy that was doing pretty great at the start of the season. sure he was making shoots tonight. but overall he’s not as dominant as before. is he still gotta need surgery?

and talking trash. Seriously dude, get a life. And if there are any Magic “fans” that go on your site and talk trash, feel free to tell them to F off as well.

BTW, You didn’t play in the game, so please stop acting like you had something to do with this victory for the Celtics.

Boston shot 42 of 70.

The previous highest opposing team shooting percentage under SVG was November of ’07 when Detroit shot 58.9% while scoring 116 points against the Magic.

The last time a team shot better than 60% against the Magic was January of ’06 when Toronto shot 63% while scoring 121 points.

The all-time record for the highest opposing team shooting percentage in a game against the Magic is 63.3% set in November of 1991 by the New York Knicks, who scored 128 points.

…and he is right.

Against Boston Monday night, this was the 77th game under Stan Van Gundy that the Magic made at least 11 threes while shooting at least 40% from long range (11 of 27).

In those 77 games, the Magic are 65-12 (84.4%).

When the Magic shoot at least 48% from three point range while making at least eleven threes in a game under SVG, the Magic are 32-2.

Thanks to www.basketball-reference.com in helping me with my research.

…I would have predicted a 20+ point win by the Celtics, so kudos to the Magic for keeping the game close on offense.

The Magic outscored Boston on three pointers and free throws 60-31.

The Celtics outscored the Magic 78-46 on two pointers.

The Celtics shot at least 56% in every quarter. 1st) 60%… 2nd) 58.8%… 3rd) 64.7%… 4th) 56.3%.

In the first half, the Magic trio of Nelson, Richardson, and Turkoglu combined to score 5 points on 1 for 6 shooting. They were much better in the second half, scoring a combined 29 points on 11 for 24 shooting.

Arenas continues to struggle with his efficiency. He scored 7 points on 2 of 6 shooting while committing 3 turnovers in just under 16 minutes of play.

Meantime, Nelson scored 9 points on just 5 shots in 32 1/2 minutes with just two turnovers.

We dared Boston to score a lot of points, unlike back in Christmas Day. And they responded.

But that’s 3 losses out of 4. It’s a mini-slump, and now this is when defense needs to continually improve.

If I was Stan, I’d consider starting JJ at the 2, JRich at the 3. Hedo and Bass come off the bench, whilst Ryan gives you a decent rebounder and 4 3-point threats once again in the starting lineup. He can be a bit streaky at times, but that’s what you get for being a downtown bomber.

The magic are starting too slow; need to get HOT from the opening bell. Only way to do this is starting with HOT players; JJ and Anderson, with Richardson at the 3 gives us that power, with Nelson rounding the 3-point threat!

This is a small line up but a fast one! It would give us a tremendous advantage in that critical first Qt. Then, we can bring in Hedo and Bass, with Arenas to pad the lead. JJ will actually improve the D over Rich at the 2 position, while the Howard-Anderson tandem should clean up the boards…

I like this a lot.

I must admit, I used to believe that Brandon Bass should start over Anderson due to his ability to hit wide open mid-range jumpers, and his energy.

However, after watching Anderson the past couple weeks, I am starting to believe that he is the perefect starting 4, while Bass would be a perfect reserve player. As long as Anderson can keep hitting around 40% of his three pointers, and get offensive rebounds, he should start. The problem with Anderson before, as with many 3 point shooters, is that they are streaky. But Anderson seems like an ideal fit as our starting 4, as he has a similar game to Rashard Lewis, which bodes especially well for Hedo. (plus he can rebound MUCH better than Rashard).

Bass, on the other hand, is still a tremendous player. But he does have that shoot-first mentality that hinders our other starters. As a reserve, however, his shoot-first mentality will be welcomed, as he would be a spark off the bench that would keep the offense flowing even while our starters sit.

I am still a believer in Arenas (maybe its my overly optimistic Orlando Magic fanhood), but he still shows glimpses of being the same Gilbert as before. I really believe that with enough time, he will start to demand more minutes due to his play (hopefully sooner, rather than later).

It would be a mistake to think that these losses were because of offense. Whilst it made for an exciting game, the magic’s defense has been really poor. I’m concerned because it seems like during crunch time we can’t string together enough stops. Anyone else felt sorry for Richardson last night who had to run through a million screens to catch up with Ray Allen? Not to knock on his effort on that end, because he clearly was going at it really hard, but it has to improve.

That said, the overall effort from the magic last night was good. I think it’s past the period where we can say that the new players need time to “settle in”. The time to produce is now, no more excuses.

Not chucking up copious amounts of threes.. We need to get ahead, and shut teams down. We can’t do it.. No movement off opponent screens. Turk just looking at Pierce shoot jumpers and no shot-contesting whatsoever.

I fear the playoffs will be the same as last year. Maybe even worse. Call it being negative, I call it No Defense whatsoever.

but we just came up a little short at the end. It seems that the teams were just trading baskets the whole game. My observations:

-Great to see Anderson get his confidence back. But Bass is just more athletic than Anderson and seems to be a bit more tougher. The example from yesterday is KG swiping the ball out of Anderson’s hands after a foul call. Anderson did nothing. KG gets a foul on Bass and Bass gives him a shove. I know you don’t want to get into these mind games with KG, but you can not let him bully you around. I know you might say “Anderson lets his game do the talking”, but thats BS. For a team that we will probably face in the playoffs, no one can intimidated by him. Also, KG is an a$$.

-Richardson messed up at the end, but what a great acquistion. I’m loving his ability to create shots for himself and being a good teammate.

-Gilbert, please go to the basket.

Can’t wait for the next game between the 2 teams.

I thought I was watching a rerun of the old Suns team of past years, and it looked to me like Howard was trying to emulate the old Amare. Score points, no defense. I like that he hit his free throws, but to me it looked like he was playing overly cautious, no doubt to avoid foul trouble, but if he is playing offense and not defense, the Magic have no chance. Too many times Howard was caught in between assignments and when he was in position, he seemed to never want to contest the shot. If he plays defense like that, we will not win in the playoffs. Period. The only real defense Howard played was on offense in getting Shaq to foul as he wasn’t even stopping his man(Shaq, 5-7), let alone others’. I know, people will point to what he did well, and for anyone else in this league I would agree. But this is Dwight, he is the real MVP because he makes his team better on both ends. Granted his teammates defense was attrocious at times, but he has got to close down that paint somehow, I mean if Boston is scoring as many points as we are from 3 point range on a night when the long ball is falling, what is this game if Ryan doesn’t hit four 3’s in a row practically? A blowout early that is what. All that said, there is hope, but only if the defense gets a lot better. We made 8 more 3 pointers than them and lost by 3. If we don’t hit as many 3 pointers, and Perkins is defending Howard respectably, we will need stops, and this game was a(nother) clear message that we are not able to compete at that end of the floor yet. I am happy the offense was good, but in the playoffs, I still believe you need defense to win it all. If the other team scores on 6 out of 10 shots, we lose.