The Orlando Magic, who got a much needed rest after falling to the Boston Celtics on Christmas day, return to action on Wednesday night when they host the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks are coming off a loss to the Charlotte Bobcats Monday night.
After some tough tests, this game will mark the first of six straight in which the Magic play sub-.500 teams.
Milwaukee was one of the surprises of the league when they started 8-3, but they have won just four games since that start and are 12-17. The Magic come in with a record of 22-8. Orlando is 12-3 at home while the Bucks are just 3-10 on the road.
Tip-off is set for 7:00 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 – 11
Starters:
Orlando:
Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Matt Barnes
Vince Carter
Jameer Nelson
Milwaukee
Andrew Bogut
Ersan Ilyasova
Luc Mbah a Moute
Michael Redd
Brandon Jennings
Update: Matt Barnes will start for Mickael Pietrus.
Luc Mbah a Moute will start in place of Carlos Delfino and will be matched up with Vince Carter.
The last time these two teams met, the Bucks got off to a fast start and held a nine-point halftime lead. The Magic made that lead disappear in the second half. They built a 10-point lead of their own in the fourth quarter, only to see the Bucks tie the game with 1:06 to play. Rashard Lewis hit the eventual game-winner with :44 left and the Magic left Milwaukee with a 100-98 victory. Dwight Howard and Vince Carter led the Magic with 25 points each while Ersan Ilyasov had 20 points and 16 rebounds.
Orlando’s Point Guards have had a lot of trouble defending opposing point guards and that trend could continue on Wednesday. When these teams last met on November 28th in Milwaukee, the Bucks’s point guards, Brandon Jennings and Luke Ridnour, combined for 38 points and 10 assists. Orlando held Jennings to 18 points, which is below his season average, but they allowed Ridnour to score 20 points.
Despite his 7-of-22 shooting night in their the first meeting, the Magic should have their hands full with Jennings, the rookie Point Guard who scored 55 points in a game this season. Jennings is scoring 19.5 points per game and dishing out 6.1 assists per game.
Luckily for Orlando’s seemingly improving defense, the Bucks are not a good team on offense. They score just 97.4 points per game and rank 25th in the league in offensive efficiency. The Bucks shoot an effective field goal percentage of just 47.7%. The Bucks shoot just 36.3% from beyond the arc.
Michael Redd, Milwaukee’s former All-Star, has shown some flashes of his former self since his return from injury, but has been very inconsistent and is averaging just 11.5 points per game in 13 games.
Milwaukee’s defense has kept them in games. They give up just 98.1 points per game and rank seventh in defensive efficiency.
The Magic, who are statistically one of the league’s best rebounding teams, should be able to control the boards.The Bucks rank 25th in the NBA in rebound rate. Former number one pick Andrew Bogut has done his job on the glass, grabbing 9.7 rebounds per game.
Here’s the game preview from the other side at Bucksketball.
(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.)