The Orlando Sentinel’s Tania Ganguli reported that Ryan Anderson was in a boot today and Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy would be “shocked” if he played all week.
That will leave Brandon Bass as the only Power Forward able to play for the Magic this week. We’ll probably have to see Matt Barnes and Marcin Gortat there. The good news is the Magic only have to play four more games without All-Star Power Forward Rashard Lewis, who is serving a 10-game suspension.
The Magic used Gortat and Howard together for a small stretch on Friday night. They also used Jason Williams and Jameer Nelson together with Nelson playing Shooting Guard.
Vince Carter is listed as doubtful for Orlando’s game at Oklahoma City tomorrow.
Ganguli has the full story here.
"“I was a little fearful,” Van Gundy said, chuckling after practice today. “We can’t afford to have anybody else go down. There was a temptation to just stay away from all contact and stuff, but we didn’t do that, we practiced.”"
The Magic need to get healthy. Fast.
Luckily for the Magic, Josh Robbins reports that Brandon Bass is ready for a bigger role.
"“I’m going to be ready for whatever,” Bass said in his typically understated tone. “Everybody’s just got to step up.”"
You can find that here.
Click here to read my analysis and thoughts from Friday night’s game.
You can find an opposing view of last night’s game from Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press here.
"The victory gave the Magic some momentary respite as it had lost 20 of the past 25 games to the Pistons.And Dwight Howard was the catalyst with 22 points and 12 rebounds to bounce back from his poor performance when he fouled out against the Pistons at the Palace on Tuesday night.“They had too many easy looks and got into a rhythm,” Kuester said. “Dwight was really approaching the game as a take-it-over-type game."
The Magic are still looking for a way to deal with the tactics that opposing teams use against Dwight Howard.
"On Friday, General Manager Otis Smith threw up his hands and said, “What’s the league going to do?” Coach Stan Van Gundy has talked like a defense attorney this season on behalf of Howard, hoping the NBA might get the message through the media.The answer?“We — and Dwight — have to adjust to the situation the way it is,” Van Gundy said.Van Gundy has long believed that referees allow defenses to pound on the bigger, stronger players inside while protecting perimeter players.”Little bit of a double standard,” he said. “The league likes perimeter play.”"
See the full story here.
J.J. Redick is finally carving his niche write Tim Povtak.
"Redick may have come into the league as one of the most celebrated college basketball players in recent history, but it has taken a complete remaking of his game and his attitude to finally carve his niche.“I’ve been thinking about it recently, and maybe I wasn’t ready to do this last year, or my second year, and certainly not as a rookie,” Redick said Friday night after helping the Orlando Magic hold off the Detroit Pistons 110-103. “I could not have stepped in and played well like this, but I’ve learned how to be a pro. And that wasn’t easy.”"
Click here to see the full story.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)
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