Orlando Magic @ Sacramento Kings

Orlando finally got a win after suffering their longest losing streak in two years. The Magic lost four straight games, all against teams under .500, but bounced back with a blowout win over the Atlanta Hawks Saturday night. They have a chance to make it two straight when they play the Sacramento Kings Tuesday night. The Kings, who had lost five straight games going into Saturday night’s contest against Denver, upset the Nuggets 102-100 behind Tyreke Evans’ 27 points. The rookie hit the game-winner with .02 remaining.

Sacramento enters the game with a record of 15-21. The Magic are 25-12. Orlando has been an excellent road team, but have struggled lately and have fallen to 11-8 on the road this season. Sacramento is much better at home with a record of 12-8 at Arco Arena.

Tip-off from Arco Arena is set for 10:00 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 -2.5

Starters:

Orlando

Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Matt Barnes
J.J. Redick
Jameer Nelson

Sacramento

Jason Thompson
Donte Green
Omri Casspi
Ime Udoka
Tyreke Evans

Vince Carter is listed as doubtful.

Tyreke Evans has been excellent in his rookie season. The Kings made Evans the #4 overall pick in the draft and it has paid off. The 6’6 Evans leads all rookies in scoring with 20.7 points per game. Evans has been even better as of late, going for 26.3 points per game over his last three. The rookie is shooting 46.2%, grabbing 5.1 rebounds per game, dishing out 5.0 assists per game and collecting 1.47 steals per game. Evans should be a handful for the Magic but they did do a good job on Atlanta’s backcourt Saturday night. The Magic held Joe Johnson, Jamal Crawford, and Mike Bibby, to a combined 23 points. That trio averages nearly 48 points per game.

The Kings score a lot of points. They average 103.8 points per game. Although, the Kings do score a lot of points, their offense ranks just 13th in efficiency. Their torrid pace (97.3, sixth in the NBA) helps explain that. They also shoot an effective field goal percentage of 50.8%, which is one of the better percentages in the league.

Kevin Martin was averaging 30.6 points per game in five games before he injured his wrist. The scoring load has been picked up largely by Evans, but the Kings have six players (not including Martin) that average in double figures in scoring.

Second-year man Jason Thompson is scoring 14.4 points per game on 48.2% shooting. He’s also grabbing a team-high 9.0 rebounds per game and is blocking .94 shots per game.

Beno Udrih has been efficient with the ball. He scores 13.8 points per game on 50.5% shooting and has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.41.

Rookie Omri Casspi (13.0 points per game, 48.3%), Spencer Hawes (10.8 points per game), and Andres Nocioni (10.1) points per game) also average in double figures.

The Kings are not a good defensive team. They give up 105.6 points per game and rank 25th in defensive efficiency. As long as the Magic have good ball movement and avoid silly turnovers, they should have a lot of success on offense.

The Kings surprisingly have a rebound rate of 50.4%, so although the Kings are undersized, the Magic may have their work cut out of them on the glass.

The Magic should have the edge in almost any category, but the Kings are well-coached, play very hard and a player like Evans should give the Magic fits. They need to come out with the same kind of energy that they came out with Saturday night against the Hawks.

(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.)