Orlando Magic News & Notes: Big Four, Giant LED Screen

The Orlando Magic fell to the Memphis Grizzlies 99-94 on Monday night. Click here to see how it happened.

Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy discussed why the Magic lost.

"We actually got beat at the 3-spot. Rashard had trouble showing on pick-and-rolls and then got beat on a back-cut,” Van Gundy said. “We made some adjustments that didn’t work for us.“[Randolph] was only 9-for-21 but his rebounding was a huge factor. I think that was the problem. We tried to match up late when it was close.”"

You can read the full story from Brian Schmitz here.

Kelly Dwyer went behind the box score.

"I watched a lot of this, especially down the stretch as it became clearer and clearer that this would be a close game, but I don’t really have many profound things to really take away from it. All I can say, if you didn’t get a chance to see it, were surprised at the outcome, and hoping to get a bit of insight is — it didn’t feel like a surprise, watching it. Because Memphis is that good, mind you.Memphis can pile on the points, so I can let Orlando get away with the Grizz tossing in over 107 points per 100 possessions. I can’t stand the Magic not getting out defensively, the closeouts were very poor (and Memphis took advantage, especially from behind the three-point arc), and I can’t stand Orlando’s 19 turnovers and just 18 free throws against a team that is just not that good defensively. Really, really poor defensively."

You can find that and more here.

Turnovers and Zach Randolph killed the Magic.

"The Griz scored 19 points off 19 Magic miscues.“It’s becoming a real problem,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. “Even down the stretch, Jameer gets in that jump ball. That’s huge. We didn’t do much right in the second half.”Randolph helped wrestle away whatever momentum the Magic had in the first half. His shot from beyond half-court as the horn sounded on the second quarter gave the Griz a 52-50 lead at the intermission.It also completed a 24-6 run that wiped out a 16-point deficit.“I’ve got a couple of (those shots) in me every year,” Randolph said."

Ronald Tillery of the Commercial Appeal has the story here.

The Magic did have their big four of Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis, Vince Carter and Jameer Nelson together for the 15th time this season.

"Van Gundy’s whole idea is to get them playing together for at least a 20-25-game stretch — and playing well.“I think they’ve been better, clearly better. There still will be ups and downs, but we’ve had some very good moments with those guys on the floor,” said Van Gundy, mentioning the third quarter of a game against the L.A. Lakers last Monday night.“They still need to get better, with longer, longer moments. They’ve had some very good moments together.”The foursome was made whole when Carter returned from a shoulder injury.Lewis said it’s just a matter of time. “Jameer and Vince are back, playing well. We just need to get our chemistry down and we’ll feel like the old Orlando Magic,” he said."

You can read the full story and other notes about the Magic (including some playbook issues) here.

There was some controversy over Orlando’s new giant outdoor LED screen on their new arena but Mark Schlueb of the Orlando Sentinel reports that it has been given the okay.

"Mayor Buddy Dyer dismissed safety concerns, saying the LED video screen is needed to make the exterior of the new arena just as impressive as the interior will be.“This is going to be the building in North America inside, and you can’t neglect the outside,” he said. “There are many distractions along the highway, and this isn’t going to be more of a distraction than 100 other things you see while you’re driving.”The 5-2 vote culminated more than a month of debate over the high-tech screen, which will be 46 feet tall and 54 feet wide, bigger than most movie screens. The plan barely passed a preliminary vote last month, with several commissioners fearing that flashy video of larger-than-life Magic players would prove too distracting for drivers on the congested stretch of I-4 that’s next to the new arena.Just before Monday’s vote, city staffers introduced an eleventh-hour compromise meant to address those concerns.Magic execs had previously estimated video clips would be about 15 seconds long. Under the new rules, the screen can display only two full-motion video clips per minute; they can’t run consecutively; and each clip can be no longer than five seconds. In between video clips, the screen will display static images that change every eight seconds."

You can read the full story here.

(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.)