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| 4-4 | 7-2 | |
| IZOD Center | ||
| 7:30 PM | ||
| FSN | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Jason Kidd | PG | Jameer Nelson |
| Antoine Wright | SG | Keith Bogans |
| Richard Jefferson | SF | Hedo Turkoglu |
| Bostjan Nachbar | PF | Rashard Lewis |
| Jason Collins | C | Dwight Howard |
25 words or fewer: The Magic take a perfect 5-0 road record to New Jersey to face the slumping Nets, losers of three straight games.
Know your enemy: The Nets are a completely average team. They're 4-4 overall, with a 3-3 home record and a 1-1 road record.
Useless information: The Nets' Vince Carter, fresh off a four-year, $60 million extension, is injured.
Bullet points:
- Dwight Howard, at least by this measure, is the best center in the NBA. Jason Collins is known for his defense (not for his offense - just one made field goal all year!), but he'll have his hands full while guarding Howard tonight.
- Our very own Rashard Quovon Lewis played solidly against the Nets last season, with averages of 23.5 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists in two games. More importantly, he shot the ball well: 50% overall and 54% on threes. Let's see if he can score 30 tonight; he hasn't done that yet all season.
- Beloved former Magic player Darrell Armstrong is Jason Kidd's backup. We miss you, Flash.
- UPDATE: Flash is nursing a thigh injury, so the Nets have signed Eddie Gill from the NBA's D-League to replace him on the active roster.
- Speaking of Kidd, he's liable to put up a triple-double on us. He presents problems for every team, but especially us because we don't have anyone who can guard him. Jameer and Carlos are too small, and Keyon Dooling doesn't seem to have the same quickness that made him so effective last season. But, as we learned on Wednesday night, opposing players can drop triple-doubles on their home floor against us and still lose.
- You may not believe this, but Richard Jefferson is 5th in the league in scoring with a 26.1 points per game average. If he gets his offense going early, I'll expect to see Trevor Ariza come off the bench to guard him.
- Brian Hill is a Nets assistant coach.
- I'll be officially worried if Hedo Turkoglu has another bad game tonight. He has not played well lately and the last thing we need is for Turk to be in one of his shooting slumps.
- UPDATE #2: Al Iannazzone reports that Bostjan Nachbar, not Nenad Krstic, will start at power forward tonight for New Jersey. Nets coach Lawrence Frank made the switch for two reasons: Nachbar, a natural small forward, matches up well with Rashard Lewis; and Krstic has struggled this season.