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| 4-4 | 6-2 | |
| Quicken Loans Arena | ||
| 7:00 PM | ||
| Sun Sports | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Daniel Gibson | PG | Jameer Nelson |
| Larry Hughes | SG | Keith Bogans |
| LeBron James | SF | Hedo Turkoglu |
| Drew Gooden | PF | Rashard Lewis |
| Zydrunas Ilgauskas | C | Dwight Howard |
25 words or fewer: The Magic face the Cavaliers in an early-season matchup of Eastern Conference contenders.
Know your enemy: The Cavs may only be at .500, but their losses have come against some of the West's best teams: Dallas, Phoenix, Utah, and Denver. Then again, their wins have come against New York, Golden State, Sacramento, and the L.A. Clippers, so it's hard to tell if they're really that good.
Useless information: Drew Gooden doesn't have that thing on the back of his head anymore.
Bullet points:
- Sun Sports! Huzzah!
- Tonight marks the beginning of a week's worth of games against likely playoff teams. The Magic make a stop in New Jersey to face the Nets on Friday night, fly home to play the Celtics on Sunday, then face New Orleans and San Antonio on the road. The next easily winnable game for us is next Friday against the Bobcats.
- J.J. Redick won't be available tonight, not that we'd use him. With each day that passes, he reminds me more and more of Brooks Thompson.
- The Magic have fared well against the Cavaliers recently, beating them twice in the preseason without Rashard Lewis and taking two out of the teams' three meetings last year. The one loss came in a game at Cleveland last December 23rd, when LeBron James outscored the Magic by himself in the fourth quarter. Somehow, this fact does not surprise me.
- If the Magic are to win this game, they're going to have to do it on the boards. Cleveland is a poor offensive team, but they get plenty of second-chance points because Ilgauskas and Gooden are such good offensive rebounders. Dwight Howard is going to need some help on the glass tonight.
- Is it just me, or does it seem like Cleveland's Daniel Gibson is the kind of player who can torch the Magic? He's like a younger, non-crappy Jannero Pargo because he's small, quick, and hits a ton of threes. If he goes nuts tonight... well, look out. There's always that old refrain: At least I have him on one of my fantasy teams.
- Maybe Dwight will make good on his promise to dunk on James, which he failed to do during the 2007 China Games.