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| 0-2 | 1-1 | |
| Verizon Center | ||
| 7:00 PM | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Gilbert Arenas | PG | Jameer Nelson |
| DeShawn Stevenson | SG | Keith Bogans |
| Caron Butler | SF | Hedo Turkoglu |
| Antawn Jamison | PF | Rashard Lewis |
| Brendan Haywood | C | Dwight Howard |
25 words or fewer: Two teams expected to battle for the Southeast Division crown play each other coming off embarrassing losses on Thursday night.
Know your enemy: The Wizards' biggest weakness this season has been the three-point shot. Through two games, they are a woeful 6-of-36 from beyond the arc; their opponents, meanwhile, are a sizzling 20-of-50. This news bodes well for the Magic, who are 20-of-40 from three-point range so far this season.
Useless information: Magic guard Keith Bogans has yet to miss a shot this season. He is 6-of-6 from the field -- all three-pointers -- and 2-of-2 from the foul line. He is the Magic's fourth-leading scorer.
Bullet points:
- It took me ten years, but I finally figured out what the heck the Wizards' alternate logo, depicted above, is supposed to be. It's a lower-case "DC."
- Gilbert Arenas talked a lot of smack in the preseason, especially in an SI.com interview in which he said he was essentially a better player than LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant (via FanHouse). So far, he has not backed that up; he is a 15-of-45 from the field and 1-of-13 from three-point range.
- Through two games, our bench has scored 37 points on 52 shot attempts.
- After last night's loss, Magic coach Stan Van Gundy lamented his coaching and his players' lack of effort, but he took a glass-half-full approach, saying, "[I]t's OK because we're in Game 2 of 82." I agree. Might as well get the crappy play out of our system early.
- I forgot to mention this fact in my wrapup from last night's game, so I'll include it here: the Pistons scored the first 10 points of the third quarter. After our win against Milwaukee, in which we outscored the Bucks 35-16, I wondered if it was too late to change the name of this website. Nice to know that I won't be needing to do that.
- The Phoenix Suns upset the basketball-aesthetic Gods by wearing their orange alternate uniforms at home last night and got their hats handed to them by the Lakers, of all teams. I never thought I'd say what I'm about to say, but let's hope the Wizards wear their hideous gold alternates at home tonight. Maybe the trend will continue.
- Be sure to check out one of my sister sites, Bullets Forever, for Wizards fans' takes on Washington's less-than-stellar season.
- In his lone game against Washington last season, Rashard Lewis scored 26 points... on 9-of-24 shooting, including 3-of-12 from downtown. It wasn't all bad, though; he also grabbed 10 boards.
If anything else comes up, I'll be sure to post it. As always, you can leave you pregame, during-game, and post-game thoughts in this thread. Once again, to listen to the game, check out NBA Audio League Pass.
UPDATE: Bullets Forever has its preview for tonight's game up. The author, Pradamaster, believes that Washington's Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler will have good games going against Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu.
UPDATE #2 (5:45 PM): This thought just occurred to me. Why not play Dwight Howard and Adonal Foyle together? According to PopcornMachine's game flow, Howard and Foyle were only on the floor together for 1:13 of playing time. Foyle was slated to enter for Keith Bogans in the third quarter of last night's game, but after the Magic pulled to within 10, Stan Van Gundy elected to keep Bogans on the floor. Had Foyle entered, the Magic's lineup would have been Nelson and Turkoglu at the guards, Lewis and Howard at the forwards, and Foyle at center. The combination of Howard and Foyle should have been able to rebound better than the lineup that was actually on the floor did. And given that Washington does not have a great rebounding presence -- with apologies to Brendan Haywood, who actually played well last night -- this frontcourt could be particularly effective. Just something to bear in mind.