The Orlando Magic look to avenge their blowout loss at the hands of Oklahoma City on November 8 when they host the Thunder on Wednesday night.
The Magic had another rough night on the defensive end but managed to grind out a 97-91 win over the Bobcats Monday night.
The Thunder, on the other, hand when it to Miami and knocked off a pretty good Heat team on uesday night.
The game starts at 7:00 pm EST and will be shown locally on Sun Sports. As always, if you can’t watch the game, you can hear it locally on WDBO 580 AM and in Spanish on WONQ AM 1030.
It look as though the Magic would finally have their team at full strength with Marcin Gortat likely to return to action on Wednesday, but then, we found out that Jameer Nelson tore his meniscus and will miss four-to-six weeks.
Jason Williams, who has played well this season, will take his place in the starting lineup. Anthony Johnson has not seen much action this season, but he was the team’s #2 Point Guard last season and should do just fine in that role for the next month or so. In fact, when I asked Johnson about his dunks during media day, “Dad” thought he had a few left in him.
"I felt pretty good this summer. I dunked a few times this summer so I feel like there are a couple more dunks left in the tank so hopefully I’ll be able to pull them out this year."
The Line: Magic – 11.5
Starters:
Orlando
Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Mickael Pietrus
Vince Carter
Jason Williams
Oklahoma City
Nenad Kristic
Jeff Green
Kevin Durant
Thabo Sefolosha
Russell Westbrook
Last Meeting: The Thunder dominated the Magic on November 8 in Oklahoma City 102-74. Orlando’s defense was absolutely awful against the Thunder. The Thunder shot an astounding 57% from the field (40%) and went 9-of-16 from beyond the arc. Kevin Durant led the Thunder with 28 points. Russell Westbrook dominated the Point Guard matchup, scoring 17 points and dishing out 10 assists.
The Magic shot just under 37% from the field and only made 3 of their 16 3-point attempts. Dwight Howard led the Magic with 20 points but made just 5 field goals and had only 7 rebounds. Mickael Pietrus scored 15 points off of the bench but no other Magic player had more than 20 points. Orlando was alsojust 21-of-34 from the free throw line.
Vince Carter, Ryan Anderson, and Rashard Lewis did not play in the game.
You can see my full recap and analysis from that game here.
Season Series: The Thunder lead the series 1-0 after defeating the Magic back on November 3.
About the Magic: Rashard Lewis returns. Jameer Nelson goes out. It’s the story of Orlando’s season so far. Marcin Gortat is expected to return to the team Wednesday night and it looked like the Magic would finally be at full strength. Then, Nelson’s injury went public. I think that the Magic can survive without Jameer Nelson at Point Guard. They did it with Rafer Alston last season. They can do it with Jason Williams and Anthony Johnson this season.
The Magic were very upset about their blowout loss to the Thunder just 10 days ago and are looking for a little revenge.
Nelson may not be playing, but the Magic did have three very good players – Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, and Ryan Anderson – who were unavailable last week. All three of these players will play in Wednesday night’s game.
The return of Orlando’s two “Stretch Fours,” Ryan Anderson and Rashard Lewis, should open up the offense, something the Magic were unable to do in their last meeting with the Bobcats.
Rashard Lewis looked rusty in his return to the Magic. He was just 4-of-15 from the field and scored only 10 points but Lewis did play a surprisingly high 34 minutes. I’d expect Lewis’ shot to come sooner rather than later. His new teammates also will need a slight adjustment period. They had some time together in the preseason, but remember, Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy sat different players on different days and did not play Lewis in the final two preseason games.
There is when Vince Carter needs to step up. He will likely see a few minutes at the point each night while Nelson is out. Jason Williams will be the team’s primary distributor, but Carte needs to be a facilitator for his teammates. Carter has done that in the past and shown some flashes of it this season. I’d like to see Carter attack the rim. When Carter (or Nelson for that matter) gets to the rim, he usually finishes, draws a foul or finds an open shooter.
Carter’s primary role will still be to score points. He will have to pick up the slack for Jameer Nelson there, because that is something Jason Williams will not be able to match.
About the Bobcats: The Bobcats improved to 6-5 after an impressive win over the Heat in Miami Tuesday night.
Kevin Durant continues to blossom into an All-Star. He has 32 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists. Durant is now averaging 28.1 points per game, 7.4 rebounds per game, and 2.4 assists per game. And he’s only 21.
Russell Westbrook, who was excellent 10 days ago against the Magic, had 24 points and 7 assists. Westbrook is having trouble with turnovers, giving away 3.7 per game but he is making up for it by dishing out 7.6 assists per game.
The Thunder have started the same five in each of their 11 games. That’s quite a difference from what Stan Van Gundy has had to do with his depleted squad.
The Thunder have a very good nucleus and are a fun team to watch.
Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra was very impressed with the Thunder.
"“They outplayed us with their athleticism, with their length, with their effort, with their energy, all those areas. They just brought more of it.”"
The Magic have had some trouble matching the energy and effort of several of the teams they have played this season. The Magic can’t let that happen again. It happened November 8 in Oklahoma City and they were blown out of the building.
(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.)