The Orlando Magic, coming off their most impressive performance of the season, will take on the surprising Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. The Bucks come in at 8-6 while the Magic enter the game an Eastern Conference best 12-4.
The Bucks are playing on the second night of a back-to-back. The Bucks were blown out 108-to-90 in Oklahoma City on Friday night.
The Magic will try to win for the seventh time in their last eight games while the Bucks attempt to put a halt to a three-game losing streak.
Orlando has won seven of the last eight meetings between the two teams.
Milwaukee Center Andrew Bogut will not play due to a lower left leg strain/contusion.
Update: Charlie Bell will start for the injured Michael Redd.
Tip-off is set for 9:00 pm EST and the game will be shown by FSN. 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.
The Line: Orlando – 6.5
Starters
Magic
Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Mickael Pietrus
Vince Carter
Jason Williams
Bucks
Dan Gadzuric
Ersan Ilyasova
Carlos Delfino
Charlie Bell
Brandon Jennings
Last Meeting: The Magic dominated the Bucks on March 27, 2009. The Magic held the Bucks to 39% shooting while Orlando shot 51.3% in their 110-to-94 victory. Six Magic players scored in double-figures, led by Rashard Lewis’ 19 points and 8 rebounds. Marcin Gorat had 10 points and 11 rebounds off of the bench. Charlie Bell and Ramon Sessions each had 19 points to lead the Bucks.
Season Series: Orlando won the season-series three games to one.
In the first meeting, back on November 24, 2008, the Bucks staged a late rally, but the Magic were able to hold them off. Dwight Howard finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds. The Bucks had easily their best shooting night against the Magic, shooting 46% while Orlando shot 47.7%. Milwaukee cut a one-time 12-point Orlando lead to just three with 24 seconds left but the Magic finally hit some free throws down the stretch (they were 38-of-54 overall).
Dwight Howard finished just three assists shy of a triple-double, scoring 28 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Hedo Turkoglu was also three assists shy of a triple-double. Orlando shot 48% and held the Bucks to just 37.7% shooting. Every Bucks player the led the team in any statistical category on March 27 (Charlie Villanueva, Ramon Sessions, and Richard Jefferson) are no longer with the team. Dan Gadzuric and Luke Ridnour, who are still members of the Bucks, each scored 10 points. Marcin Gortat had 10 points and 8 rebounds in just 15 minutes.
In the final meeting, Orlando shot just under 32% from the field while the Bucks shot 44.3% and won 98-to-90. Orlando had a six-point lead at the end of their first quarter, but the Bucks dominated the remainder of the game. The Magic were without Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis, and J.J. Redick. Richard Jefferson scored 24 points to lead the Bucks. Marcin Gortat had 10 points and 18 rebounds in the loss.
Marcin Gortat did not play in the first meeting between Orlando and Milwaukee, but he averaged 10 points and 12.3 rebounds against the Bucks last season.
About the Magic: Orlando finally played up to their potential in the second half against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday. After falling behind by 12 at halftime, the Magic dominated the second half, outscoring the Hawks 54-to-25. The Hawks shot just 38.8% from the field. They entered the game shooting 47% from the field.
Orlando’s defense has been much better since the return of one of the league’s more underrated defenders, All-Star Power Forward Rashard Lewis. Unfortunately, Lewis has really struggled on offense. He is shooting just 31.9% from the field and 17.9% from beyond the 3-point arc. Lewis is averaging just 12.8 points per game and 6 rebounds per game.
Stan Van Gundy called for his superstars to play with more consistency after Wednesday night’s loss to Miami.
"“We’re just not getting consistently good play from the guys we’re really looking too right now.”"
This includes Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter.
Dwight Howard must have got the memo. He took over the second half against the Hawks, scoring 16 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and blocking three shots in the second half during Orlando’s come-from-behind victory against the Hawks on Thursday night.
Howard needs to continue to play with that intensity if the Magic want to continue to win against a higher level of competition.
About the Bucks: The Bucks have lost their last three games after starting the season by winning eight of their first 11 games. All three of those games – San Antonio, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City – were on the road.
Milwaukee is the league’s seventh least efficient offensive team, but makes up for it with pretty solid defense – they are the ninth most efficient defensive team in the league (Orlando is the ninth most efficient team on offense and sixth on defense).
Rookie Brandon Jennings has been the story for the Bucks. Many were skeptical of Jennings’ attitude after he bypassed college to spend a year in Europe, but he has proved every doubter wrong. Jennings is shooting 44.3% from the field and 47.7% from downtown. He is scoring 22.76 points per game and grabbing 4.3 rebounds per game. He’s averaging 5.6 assists and 3.57 turnovers per game. He’s also averaging 1.29 steals per game. Jennings has been good all season but he really burst on to the scene in two consecutive games: a 108-102 upset of Denver in which Jennings had 32 points and 9 assists and a 129-125 win over Golden State where Jennings exploded for 55 points while shooting 61.8% from the field.
Jennings, however, is coming off one of his worst games of the season. He was outplayed by Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook and Friday night, going just 3-of-11 from the field for 12 points. He had just three assists and turned the ball over three times.
Michael Redd has played the last three games after missing a majority of the season due to injury. Redd’s return has been unsuccessful so far. Milwaukee has lost all three games and Redd is scoring just 9.8 points per game. He is shooting just 27.8% from the behind the 3-point line and 30.2% from the field overall. It’s not a matter of if Redd will start shooting, but when. He is a career 45.1% shooter from the field a 38.5% shooter from beyond the arc and has a career-average of 20.4 points per game.
If the Magic want to come out of Milwaukee with a win, they must continue to play good defense, especially against Jennings and Redd. It’s like that Jason Williams and Mickael Pietrus will have the duty of covering those guards. Williams has played very good defense as of late and Pietrus is becoming one of the best one-on-one wing defenders in the entire league.
The Magic need to dominate the glass – the Bucks aren’t a terrible rebounding team, but their starting lineup is somewhat undersized and outside of Andrew Bogut (who is injured), they don’t have a guy who can consistently crash the boards.
(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.)