Half-assed Preview: Magic @ Hornets


I’ll barely have time to shit tomorrow, so this is going up now. In fact, I’ve been so busy lately, that I even completely forgot about the seventh anniversary of Bobby Phills’ death. And I call myself an old school Hornets’ fan? Shame on me.

Dwight. Rebounding. I guess.

  • The Magic are 22-16 on the season, having cooled a bit since their 14-5 start. They’re 8-10 on the road this season, and will finish up a four-game West coast trip with Tuesday’s game against the Hornets.
  • Orlando have lost two in a row following five-game winning streak. They last played at Phoenix on Saturday, dropping that one 101-107. Jameer Nelson led six Magic players in double figures with 26 points.
  • Dwight Howard is the main man in Disneyland, averaging 17.4 points, 12.6 rebounds and a pair of blocks a night. He scored a career-high 30 and grabbed a season-high 25 last Wednesday against the Warriors. Those numbers ain’t wrong, I checked.

    He did struggle against the Suns however, managing just 10 points and 5 rebounds in 29 minutes.

  • Out injured for Orlando is the uber-athletic Trevor Ariza. He won’t be gardening for 6-8 weeks with a sprained MCL.

    Ariza doesn’t normally start, but Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel is calling him the Magic’s least expendable player after Dwight Howard.

    I remember the Hornets worked out Ariza before the draft a few years ago. Or maybe they didn’t. I’m sure Baron Davis was pushing for the Hornets to draft him though because of the UCLA connection.

  • Other players in blue tomorrow who are skilled at various aspects of the game of basketball include Hedo Turkoglu and that Grant Hill dude. Darko Milicic also plays for Orlando, but he’s not better than Dwyane Wade or Carmelo Anthony or Chris Bosh or David West. Full team stats here.
  • The Hornets and Magic did tango in Orlando just before the Christmas, back when Chris Paul had two good ankles and Tyson Chandler wan’t a scoring machine. You may remember CP dunking all nasty like on Dwight in that game, but the Hornets lost in the end, 86-83. Refresh.

So yeah, that’s about it. Tip tomorrow is at 7pm CT. Third win in a row? Maybe, although I figure Milwaukee would have been an easier place to get it. No word on when that game will be rescheduled, btw. Linkage below. I’m done.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.