The Detroit Pistons have now slaughtered the Orlando Magic the last two meetings, and the story was nearly identical in both games.
The story was that a Pistons shooter went nuts while Andre Drummond cleaned up the messes inside. In the loss on Dec. 30, that player was Jodie Meeks hoisting and drilling threes, and tonight it was a more likely candidate, Brandon Jennings.
The perplexing thing is that the Magic have a great defender at the point in Payton, and if he falters, Jacque Vaughn can assign Victor Oladipo to the player.
The difference is that tonight no one was going to stop Jennings from making history. More on that later in this short exposition of what has gone wrong in some of these lopsided losses.
The Magic were just eight-point underdogs but lost this one by 10, 128-118.
It’s good to see the Magic can put up 118 points, but it is horrible to see that is not enough, even against a team like the Pistons who sit on the outside looking in on the Eastern Conference playoff seedings.
Let’s look at seven reasons why the Magic were unable to avenge the loss to the Pistons and have now lost two straight to Stan Van Gundy’s club.
Next: Defense needs to step up