The following blog posts have been tagged as Orlando Magic.
Posted by Joe Gerrity
June 23, 2010
Hornets fans must be so sick of talking about Chris Paul rumors. I know I am, so I've decided to start making stuff up to balance out the universe. It's pretty unfair that all the major "rumors" have the Hornets superstar heading elsewhere. Pretty clearly the time of Hornets fans would be better spent thinking about potential trades that actually help the team.
Made up rumor number one: LeBron to New Orleans
Posted by Joe Gerrity
April 16, 2010
Don't get too excited, but it appears that the that the NBA salary cap and luxury tax lines are dropping less than expected. It's now being projected that the cap will fall from 57.7 million to 56.1 million. The 1.6 million dollar decrease is millions less than most front offices had anticipated.
The expected luxury tax hasn't been revealed, and likely won't be until the official salary cap is set. That said, I project it to be just over 68 million, given the historical correlation between the two. This years luxury tax line was set at 69.92 million.
As it stands right now the Hornets have ten players under contract for approximately 72.2 million dollars.
Posted by Ryan Schwan
February 27, 2010
Well, I just saved that game on TiVO as "Keep until I Delete". It simply had everything I love about basketball in it: Incredible shooting by the Hornets, West playing with fire, a tremendous comeback against the odds, big shots, and an unlikely hero.
The comeback was crazy, considering how the Magic had built their lead in the first place. During the second, their guards attacked the Hornets biggest Achilles heel: pick and roll defense. They drove into the paint and scored easily, or dished to Dwight for a dunk. Over, and over and over. The lead grew to 18, and I had pretty much accepted that it was going to be one of THOSE nights.
But then the Magic relaxed, committed some turnovers, gave up some easy baskets, and started taking threes. The Hornets kept attacking, the crowd got into it, and the defense on both sides began to tighten. The Hornets, however, lived on scrapping and trying to get easy baskets. The Magic lived by the three - despite abysmally cold shooting for them. At some point I expected the ever over-expressive Stan Van Gundy to grab Jameer Nelson by the shoulders and scream at him, "For the love of god, get to the basket!!!"
Never happened. Hornets win.
I’ve probably said this before, but little has been more depressing over the last season and a half than David West's frequently lackadaisical play. He’s been my favorite Hornet for years, and it hurts to see the lack of effort some nights. Tonight, however, from the start, you could tell he was there to play. He hit a tough jumper, fought through contact for a pair of layups, and suddenly everything was dropping. Bad shots, good shots, contested shots, they were all falling. I can’t even say Rashard Lewis’s defense was bad, because it wasn’t. West was just clicking.
Then, early in the third, when the Hornets had chipped an 18 point lead to 12, I saw West scramble to cover a cutting Matt Barnes, then sprint out to contest a shot by Rashard Lewis. He then ran down court, leading a break that ended with an easy layup for him. I watched that series three times, grinning like a fool, and it was then I thought we might have a chance in this game.
And the three in the fourth? You KNEW that was going in.
Posted by Niall Doherty
February 26, 2010
The Hornets are back in New Orleans tonight, aiming to shake off those two road losses. They'll have their work cut out doing that against the 39-19 Orlando Magic. Game tipping later than usual (8:30 p.m.) since it's being broadcast on ESPN.
The Magic are 17-13 on the road this season and have won six of their past eight. Earlier this week they beat the Cavs in Orlando, then blew out the Rockets in Houston on Wednesday. In the latter, Dwight Howard delivered 30 points and 16 rebounds, hitting all 11 of his field goal attempts.
You may recall the last meeting between the Hornets and Magic, in Orlando back on February 8: Vince Carter scored 48 points as the Magic won 123-117. Emeka Okafor proved ineffective in that game trying to slow Dwight Howard, but the baskets were coming easy for the Hornets as David West, Darren Collison and Peja Stojakovic scored 27, 27 and 29 respectively.
Morris Peterson is questionable for the Hornets tonight after straining his hamstring Wednesday in Milwaukee. If he can't play, Marcus Thornton is expected to start at shooting guard. That leaves the bench pretty thin though, as noted by Jim Eichenhofer over at Hornets.com:
Without Peterson and Songaila, the Hornets would be down to nine available players against Orlando and a bench consisting of James Posey, Julian Wright, Sean Marks and Aaron Gray.
Another result of all these injuries is Collison playing a lot of minutes. This from Elias over at ESPN.com:
Collison scored 22 points in 42 minutes in the Hornets' loss at Milwaukee, the ninth straight game in which he logged at least 40 minutes. The only other current NBA players who had streaks of at least nine straight 40-minute games during their rookie season are Grant Hill (1994-95), Michael Finley (1995-96), Allen Iverson (1996-97) and Shane Battier (2001-02).
Pace: Magic 95.1 (14th), Hornets 94.8 (17th)
Offensive Efficiency: Magic 107.1 (7th), Hornets 104.4 (14th)
Defensive Efficiency: Magic 99.8 (3rd), Hornets 105.5 (19th)
(Many thanks to Dariusz for today's banner featuring Morris Peterson. Be sure to check out more of Dariusz's designs in our Wallpapers vault.)
Posted by Niall Doherty
February 08, 2010
Quite an entertaining game on Orlando tonight, as the depleted Hornets came out on fire and dropped 70 points in the first half, taking a 15-point lead into the break. They were able to weather the Magic storm in the third quarter but it was too much Vince Carter in the end that buried them. 123-117 was the final score.
Carter dropped 34 points in the second half and 48 total, his biggest scoring outburst in more than 9 years (Update: Elias says he scored 51 for the Nets once, so maybe not). There wasn't much the Hornets could have done differently against him. He had some open looks in the game, but more often than not he was taking well-contested shots. I'd go so far as to say that many of them were ill-advised. But he was hitting them, so it worked out well for the Magic.
Collison played extremely well in the first half, pushing the pace when appropriate, making patient plays in the halfcourt, attacking Jameer Nelson and sticking a bunch of jumpers. He had 16 points and 8 assists heading to the break. In the second half though, he was a completely different player. He appeared much more hesitant in driving the ball and he was front-rimming his jumpers, leading me to believe that his legs were failing him out there.
Collison also had trouble keeping Nelson out of the lane, though that was mostly because of the solid high screens set by Dwight Howard and poor help defense by the Hornets bigs at the back. Nelson didn't score much himself off those drives, but he got the majority of his 10 assists that way, usually kicking out to the left corner for an open triple.
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