The Magic is playing like a championship team right now.
They are deep, they have lots of shooters and very solid defensively. If guys like Pietrus and Lewis struggled like today, then they could play Reddick and Anderson, who are excellent shooters as well. They are showing people that they can play against any style and win.
The game turned in the fourth quarter where Riddick and Williams start hitting jumpers. Riddick again killed the Raptors with 19 points on 10 shots. The Magic did a good job spreading the floor and attacking the offensive glass.
For the most part, the Raptors defense played ok. Howard shot 4/13 from the floor, Bosh did a great job on him defensively, Vince took 24 shots to get his 24 points, Lewis was 0-6 from downtown. The Magic shoot 41% from the floor and 9 of 32 from downtown.
The problem however is that the Raptors got killed on the boards. 14 offensive rebounds, you don’t give a team like the Magic second chance points, because they will murder you for it.
Bargnani and Turkoglu didn’t do much for the Raptors and with Belinelli missing, the offense struggled a bit. Bargnani is -14 for the game and the Magic keeps running pick and roll against Andrea and Bargnani just don’t defend it well. Teams will continue to do that until he learns and adjust.
Keys to the loss:
– Offensive boards. Offensive boards gives extra possessions and you don’t want to give extra 24 seconds to any team especially the Magic.
– Bosh not getting the ball. For a long stretch, Bosh didn’t touch the basketball. In a game like this, the ball has to go to your franchise player, and let him carry the team.
On the plus side, Amir Johnson played another good game off the bench and his energy level is solid. Jack didn’t shoot the ball well, but he had 11 assists and 0 turnovers, which is very unlike Jack.
Next game against TJ Ford and the Indiana Pacers, should be a 3 point shoot fest.
6-8
Tags: Toronto Raptors
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