Orlando Magic News for May 20th: More on Dwight Howard's Offense, Lineup Suggestions, Concerns about the Bench, and More

Zach Harper of Hardwood Paroxysm breaks down Dwight Howard's post game. Harper says Howard has a different build than most other dominant, low-post centers, which hurts him on offense. "Considering he has to make due with the way he’s built," Harper concludes, "I’d say he does a pretty good job scoring inside."

Stats guru Wayne Winston, whom the Dallas Mavericks used to employ in their analytics department, has some ideas about lineups that might help the Orlando Magic get back into their series against the Boston Celtics.

A major reason for the Magic's disappointing Eastern Conference Finals against Boston, John Hollinger writes, is that their bench has not produced enough.

Mickael Pietrus in particular seems off, shooting just 2-of-8 from the field and scoring only nine points in 36 minutes -- well off his norms and a far cry from what he did to Cleveland in last season's conference finals. Another bench ace, sharpshooting power forward Ryan Anderson, hasn't played a minute because of matchup concerns.

Here's Eddy's highlight reel of J.J. Redick's play against the Celtics. Redick's been the Magic's lone offensive contributor off the bench in this series.

Tania Ganguli of the Orlando Sentinel tweets that coach Stan Van Gundy acknowledged the Magic are better with Redick on the floor in this series, but that he will not change his starting lineup.

In a q-and-a with bloggers covering teams still in the championship hunt, former NBA head coach and current TNT analyst Doug Collins answered my question about the effect a long layoff between series had on the Magic heading into the Conference Finals.