Saturday, March 12: @ Portland Trail Blazers
Before the season started, this would have been marked down on the schedule as another easy game. The Portland Trail Blazers are probably the surprise of the year, and certainly in the West.
An almost entirely new roster has quickly gelled around Damian Lillard, who has been on an absolute tear of late and now parked themselves in the playoffs. The Blazers have been comfortable in the sixth seed for a number of weeks but now sit one loss behind it.
Portland, however, is on a three-game losing streak right now (and they also play the Golden State Warriors the day before the Orlando Magic, so look for them to be suitably tired).
While Lillard and C.J. McCollum are incredible dangers, the roster has weaknesses inside and on the bench, which Orlando should be looking to exploit. Yes, it is an important week for Nicola Vucevic.
Portland is another team to have beaten Golden State this year, so the possibility for them to go off is evident.
This will be the end of a tiring week for the Magic, who have had their problems with energy anyway of late. They will need to be running the floor with the young blazers in order to go home with a win.
Next: Power Rankings Roundup