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Does anyone else think that other teams just seem to play amazing against the Magic?

It seems like every time we play a team, the players that are slumping play amazing against us. Players hit impossible shots against and go for career highs.

Our defense isn't amazing on the perimeter, but it isn't that bad, yet still players go off against us.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that a certain player has shot 4 of 65 the last 5 games prior, yet against us they make almost every shot they take.

So you just now decided to post a thread on this? This has been happening for years and years. So how long have you been a Magic fan for? To just realize this now

OrlandoMagic wrote:So you just now decided to post a thread on this? This has been happening for years and years. So how long have you been a Magic fan for? To just realize this now

I know it's been happening for years, but it just seems that this year it's happened almost every game.

Miami- Wade went off.

Charlotte- Richardson went off.

Chicago- Gordon and Noc went off

And it's not even open jumpshots they're hitting. They hit contested jumpers, hard layups, and shots that just seem to come to them off of rebounds or blocks perfectly.

Your examples are where we are mismatched, esp. Wade and Richardson. Now, if this was a trend at SF or Center I'd be concerned. Richardson and Wallace played a two man game for most of the night on Saturday and Richardson got the best end of the deal because he had the advantage. The trick is that we won.....


wait a minute, we won all three games you've chosen to site as examples... it's not a big deal that they went off IMO as long as we get the W.

it's because our guys are so soft and they don't get in their faces and in their heads. as far as mental games go, i think the magic lose every time.

we need someone to rough it up and really get in the heads of the other players.

or we just need SVG to know the best defenses to take these guys out of their element, like he did with Wade (although, not until the end and during OT).

fuz wrote:Your examples are where we are mismatched, esp. Wade and Richardson. Now, if this was a trend at SF or Center I'd be concerned. Richardson and Wallace played a two man game for most of the night on Saturday and Richardson got the best end of the deal because he had the advantage. The trick is that we won.....


wait a minute, we won all three games you've chosen to site as examples... it's not a big deal that they went off IMO as long as we get the W.

I just feel that we should have won those games a LOT easier than we did.

fuz wrote:Your examples are where we are mismatched, esp. Wade and Richardson. Now, if this was a trend at SF or Center I'd be concerned. Richardson and Wallace played a two man game for most of the night on Saturday and Richardson got the best end of the deal because he had the advantage. The trick is that we won.....


wait a minute, we won all three games you've chosen to site as examples... it's not a big deal that they went off IMO as long as we get the W.

yes it is! because it's just few points either way of being a loss. it's not a convincing win. we shouldn't be getting in these positions to begin with. especially against all teams with poor records.

True we should have won them by a better margin, but all of those guys you mentioned are truly good players. We were outmatched at those positions.

In the NBA, any team can beat any other team on just about any given night. I'm never really surprised when a bottom dweller beats a top-tier team. What shocks me is if the bottom dwellers can sweep (or close to it) the best. Sometimes, it happens though... due to mismatches.

What? Guys are going off on us? I never noticed lol.

Hairy Midget wrote:Does anyone else think that other teams just seem to play amazing against the Magic?

It seems like every time we play a team, the players that are slumping play amazing against us. Players hit impossible shots against and go for career highs.

Our defense isn't amazing on the perimeter, but it isn't that bad, yet still players go off against us.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that a certain player has shot 4 of 65 the last 5 games prior, yet against us they make almost every shot they take.

we have a bunch of softees for players, there is no one that will put one of "THOSE MAGIC KILLERS", on the floor when they start going off on us, what we need is a RICK MAHORN type of goon, so the other teams won't feel so comfortable playing against us.

Bad D on the perimeter. Bogans can be decent at times but mostly his D isn't efficient, looks like he's trying but he's not smart. And we haven't had a decent pair of defensive guards for a long time. There was a moment I guess in OT where we really denied the ball in Gordon's hands, I mean really denied him from getting the ball in his hands, that was great D. We usually give the opponents room to do what they want. When Bogans closed Wade's room he made an offensive foul, it's all about playing smart D.

I think defensively the tone is set by Dwight. If he doesnt have a good defensive game we are going to lose. His defense forces players on to th perimeter daring them to shoot and this at times becomes are weakness but also is the reason why some teams shoot so poorly against us.

Basically if the team hits the three ball well and go's to that against us they have taken Dwight out of the game. Also a good play making point guard can draw Dwight and fan the open center and we usually do not rotate help defense for Dwight.

I have noticed we have been a little bit better in our defensive execution. However allot of these so called teams we have beaten recently were expected to be top tier. Heat, Bobcats, Jazz, Grizz, were all supposed to be a bit better then what there records indicate.

Now imagine if every fan of the teams we play against start to create a topic about how Dwight was huge against them. RealGM would colapse!

It's usually not our defense's fault. Bogans was playing very good defense on Gordon yesterday, and he was just hitting all kinds of wild shots.

At least it's not like this is anything new. And at least this time we're winning despite the insane games by (for the most part) mediocre players. That's a sign of improvement.

Because we have a target on our back? Because teams tend to play to the level of their competition and everyone rises to the challenge of playing the Magic? Having a career night is primarily an emotional thing. A great player is likely to have a career night against a poor team, because great players tend not to play down to the competition, and good teams will have some success at containing them. But pretty good players are most likely to play their best against a team that is better, but not too much better. As long as we win, who cares who has a career night?

As everyone said above, the Magic are still an immature team. We aren't young compared to the NBA average, but we (particularly our starting lineup) are young compared to the elite teams. There's a big change in the toughness of this team compared to last year, and the biggest is third quarter performance.

vagnermagic wrote:Now imagine if every fan of the teams we play against start to create a topic about how Dwight was huge against them. RealGM would colapse!

A basketball paradox!

magicmamma wrote:Because we have a target on our back? Because teams tend to play to the level of their competition and everyone rises to the challenge of playing the Magic? Having a career night is primarily an emotional thing. A great player is likely to have a career night against a poor team, because great players tend not to play down to the competition, and good teams will have some success at containing them. But pretty good players are most likely to play their best against a team that is better, but not too much better. As long as we win, who cares who has a career night?

As everyone said above, the Magic are still an immature team. We aren't young compared to the NBA average, but we (particularly our starting lineup) are young compared to the elite teams. There's a big change in the toughness of this team compared to last year, and the biggest is third quarter performance.

yeah, i've noticed it as well. they're still soft, but they're making improvements, which makes me very happy. considering that them being 'soft' can lead to a record such as we have now gets me excited about how they'll perform once they spend a year under SVG, become a proven top tier team and their confidence becomes sturdier. the guys are showing every sign of being capable of learning toughness. (i say this until they go on their next losing streak )

Quick, undersized guards going off on us? It must be the apocalypse.

You mean like when Paul Peirce tripple pumped from 25 feet faded away and hit the 3? You mean stuff like that?

That's why we will never go far into the playoffs...

Just defense in general, dosen't get you farther than the 2nd round.