Chicago Bulls 97, Orlando Magic 83

/sad panda

But Jameer is a pain to watch, he’s totally lost, SVG needs to sit him a couple of games!

Leaving Korver wide open for 3’s, there was a stretch of, like, 4 straight possessions where they threw the ball out of bounds. Just ridiculous.

That was at the 9:11 mark of the third quarter. The rest of the quarter, the Bulls shot just 4 of 17 as the Magic cut their deficit to 73-62 going into the fourth quarter. The Magic continued to chip away at the Bulls’ lead in the fourth, coming as close as 80-77 with 6:03 remaining.

From that point on though, the Magic finished the game shooting 1 for 8 from the field in scoring just 6 points the remaining 6:03.

The Magic held the Bulls to 15 of 44 FG (34.1%) in the second half, compared to 23 of 42 FGs (54.8%) in the first half. But the Magic shot just 12 of 30 FGs (40%) in that second half, so they couldn’t really take advantage of the Bulls’ cold second-half shooting.

Ryan Anderson and J.J. Redick combined to shoot 2 of 14 from the field, including 1 for 8 on threes. Six points on 14 shots from your best shooters won’t get the job done.

Not surprised that Coach Van Gundy was unhappy with the ball movement, with just 15 assists on 30 baskets. Compare that to the Bulls, who had 27 assists on 38 baskets, and outscored the Magic 84-67 from the field.

Jameer Nelson’s 3 of 9 shooting night now has his FG% at 37.3% for the season. I don’t necessarily mind that his FG percentage is so low, as long as he’s doing a good job of running the offense. He was doing so prior to the Bulls’ game, with an assist/turnover ratio of about 2 1/2 to 1. Against the Bulls, though, Nelson having more turnovers (3) than assists (2) really hurt.

The Bulls outshot and outrebounded the Magic, as well as having a much better assist/turnover ratio. Last time the Bulls and Magic played last April, they barely defeated the Magic by three points, and the Magic were without D12.

As good as the Bulls were last season, they look improved this season. Derrick Rose’s scoring is down, but his assists and his efficiency are up. His teammates are giving him plenty of help on the offensive side, and their bench is deep. The defense looks to be just as good as last season’s was, but with an improved offense.

As for the Magic, they’re going to have to bounce back from this loss.

Tough to make out what this team is really all about just yet, only 8 games in, so I will try to avoid any huge sweeping judgments.

The Magic played pretty well in the first quarter, albeit giving up too many second chance opportunities. They shot the ball fairly well and had good energy as Evan mentioned. I liked the way they came out attacking the rim, but I felt Hedo took a step back toward last season’s version than what he has been like through most of these first 7 games.

Jameer needs to get out of his little shooting funk, and it seemed like if one of either JJ or Anderson didn’t play flat-out awful that we still could have won this game. Another superb effort from Dwight. He has really been bringing it since Christmas. The Bulls seemed to make a lot of long jumpers tonight, so I can’t really fault the D too much. Those are the shots you want teams taking. I am not familiar enough with the Bulls offense to know if those are their normal ways of scoring and if they look to shoot that many jumpers, but from my past experiences watching them play, they usually relied on corner 3s, as well as Rose and Deng drives to the hoop.

The bad luck/awful effort to get defensive boards and prevent second chance opportunities is what really killed us tonight. You cannot give good teams like the Bulls multiple opportunities to score and still expect to win, plain and simple.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement on this team. Are we ready to compete on the same level as teams like Chicago? No, not right now. I do feel however that they have the potential to get there if we get some more consistent play from our wings and rebounding overall.

I know its early but the magic are struggling against the good teams.

just when i thought i could trust him all season long, he chokes in a big game like this. Hopefully he will come up big next time we play a powerhouse in the East or West.

Nelson still looks like he is out of basketball shape, and needs to pick his game up as well.. J Rich had a nice offensive game but messed up everywhere else, which is why I hope we get a backup sf or start using Clark/Harper/Q more off the bench to rest J Rich. Redick disappointed today as well…I liked Big Baby’s effort today, hopefully he hits more shots, but it was nice seeing him not shoot that long 2 as much…and Duhon is not horrible anymore, even though I’d still like to see Von Wafer play more since he woulda driven the ball in the lane

1st Anderson chokes against good teams. He always disappears when we need him most. 2nd Stans coaching. i like stan and what he has done for this team. but i truly question him and his ability to adjust in crucial games. also what’s the point of clark,harper,liggins,wafer, hughes, q-rich, and orton if we’re not gonna use them. and turk is a liability at the 4 against a good rebounding team. your telling me that a limpy glen is better then clark or harper? bull. this 8 man rotation is not gonna work all the time. because if J.J isn’t doing well we have no bench. try the young guys. try the veterans. 3rd defense leads to offence and the bulls showed that to us.

Couldn’t agree more with aterry 560, I thought we would be 6-2 after our first 8 games, the only loss I didn’t see was the Detroit one. Looking at the next 6 games, I could see us going 4-2, with losses at Portland(a surprisingly good team), and a loss to San Antonio(third game of a back to back to back), giving us a 9-5 record to start the season, which I will gladly take. Until this unit really, really coalesces, we are, IMHO, a middle of the pack playoff team, a 3 or 4 seed perhaps, but not at all likely to see the finals again this year. Too many nagging shortcomings, beginning with Jameer, but also our lack of consistent defensive intnesity(other than Dwight), and lots of other things will limit how far this squad can go. Sucks, because we know there is no combination of players or picks available that can come anywhere near what Dwight means to this team. I will miss him greatly.

For years we have been making excuses for Jameer when he doesn’t live up to our expectations. During the season of our finals run he was having his best season and was rewarded with allstar validation. Unfortunately he got injured in the reg season missed the allstar game and most of the playoffs and watched as Rafer Alston put on occasional big game performances to help us advance round after round.Jameer would get his chance, return early from injury in what everybody was hoping to be the Allstar that twice dominated the Lakers and Spurs that season. He returned to play in the finals as a shell of himself who many would argue was a main factor in our losses to the Lakers. We were forced to sit Rafer despite his noteworthy performances that got us the chance at a title and watch as Jameer hobbled his way with poor performances after the other. Who could forget the overtime game where Fisher buried the big 3 to rally the unlikely comeback and Jameer’s fails on defence and offence. During each season we see glimpses of a guy that could be an allstar sometimes great 3 point and clutch shooter. His offense usually reliable and consistant however his defence would be his Achilles heel against really good pointguards or just ones that were more athletic and had a knack for driving to the rim. With Dwight’s trade demand putting the team under the spotlight many were hoping for big improvements from each player with the hope to appeal Dwight to stay. As the captain and one of Dwight’s closer friends we all expected Jameer to have another Allstar like season to keep the Magic in relevancy in the East elite and show his friend that they wanted to win. Although early in the season and what appears to be career lows all across the stat sheets while at the same time seeing improvements from Ryan, JJ even Duhon we must ask ourselves can we rely on Jameer. If Dwight leaves will he be the player to lead the new guys to another Finals run or a trade piece for a rebuilding Magic team and cementing himself as a likeable player that we thought was better than he really was and what a great backup point guard he could and should have been.

1) Someone teach this team to box out, often there were 3 or 4 Magic players standing around the rim waiting for the rebound and a Bulls player (Boozer, Asik, and Gibson primarily) would just get the rebound out of NOWHERE.

2) Ryan was in the doghouse (figuratively)- SVG seemed pissed at his defense and his cold shooting didn’t help his case either. On a related note, Baby played the best game in a Magic Uni yet. He was aggressive on the boards and was playing solid defense. Hope his hip isn’t too much of a bother

3) Why in the world can’t we execute a simple pass or create ball movement? It wasn’t just J-rich throwing to anyone but anyone throwing to J-Rich also. Stop trying to look flashy and just pass the ball.

4) That also being said, JJ wasn’t particularly good on the offensive end either. Mainly from lack of ball movement.

5) Someone please food poison Kyle Korver before the next game or something. That man couldn’t miss yesterday.