 |
 |
|
| 0-7 | 5-2 | |
| Amway Arena | ||
| 7:00 PM | ||
| FSN | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Luke Ridnour | PG | Jameer Nelson |
| Kevin Durant | SG | Keith Bogans |
| Damien Wilkins | SF | Hedo Turkoglu |
| Chris Wilcox | PF | Rashard Lewis |
| Robert Swift | C | Dwight Howard |
25 words or fewer: The winless SuperSonics come to Orlando to face the Magic and their former teammate, Rashard Lewis.
Know your enemy: Seattle may have a horrible record, but they have lost close games to Phoenix, Utah, and Detroit. In other words, they aren't awful.
Useless information: The SuperSonics left Orlando unhappy after their lone visit last year; Hedo Turkoglu nailed a game-winning jumper for Orlando at the buzzer.
Bullet points:
- Tim Povtak wrote this piece about Lewis' history with Seattle for this morning's paper. I have no idea why he calls Lewis a guard/forward. When has 'Shard ever played a guard position? Not last year, and only a fraction of his total minutes the year before that.
- Who the heck is going to guard Kevin Durant? He's a 6'10" shooting guard. Rashard and Hedo match up with him size-wise, but they are not good defenders. Keyon Dooling and Keith Bogans are our best on-ball defenders, but they are 6'3" and 6'5", respectively; they aren't tall enough. That leaves Trevor Ariza, an outstanding defender who, at 6'8" matches up with Durant the best. Let's see if he gets more burn tonight.
- According to Accuscore, the Magic have a 70% chance of winning tonight.
- Dwight had 22 points and 20 rebounds against the Knicks, then followed that up with 33 points and 17 rebounds against the Suns. Considering the Sonics' lack of interior defense, he should post some beastly numbers tonight.
- Speaking of beastly, here's a clip of Dwight rejecting Seattle's Luke Ridnour last season.
- Chris Wilcox is the SuperSonic who worries me most. He's a big, strong power forward having a career year: 16.3 points and 8.7 rebounds. I wouldn't be surprised if he went for 20/12.
- The SuperSonics are 26th in offensive efficiency and 27th in turnover rate. The Magic need to capitalize on this young team's mistakes if they went to win.
- Y'know, we could play off Kevin Durant and just let him shoot. He's a miserable .389 from the field this season, and it's taken him 144 shots to score 152 points.