Tough to see how Magic can rebound -- OrlandoSentinel.com

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Thing is the Magic are the ones talking about how rough the Pistons play but they have been the only ones taking cheap shots out there. There have not been a lot of them but there has been a couple.

Its not worth the trash talk from the Pistons if it leads to a key player missing the rest of the playoffs because some Magic player got frusterated. Just finish these guys off and save the talking.

Yeah, I saw that. Wouldn't expect much different from the media. They always exaggerate things.

I'm willing to take 3 points off of our score if it makes the Magic fans feel better. 97-93 is the officially modified score for the historians to see.

Man was Prince awesome in this one. 2nd leading scorer. Leading rebounder. Led team in assists. Led in steals. Held Turkyglu to 12 points and made him cough it up 6 times.

Sheed, Max, and Dyess were 14 of 17 from the field and that included 2 missed threes by Sheed.

Billups has returned to his usual self.

8 turnovers to 19! That is how you beat the Magic. Howard is quite good, but he turned it over 5 times and his teammates turned it over a lot trying to get the ball to him. It makes me appreciate all of Sheed's finesse.

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"I don't think MC is going to allow us to shoot as many jumpers." Tayshaun Prince.

Ain't that an awesome game, 11 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 3 in 31 mins, wow Maxiel was everywhere.

Max was fantastic. The only downside is at the end of games he's really giving up way too much height to Howard. Sheed should always be on Dwight in the last few minutes esp. for rebounding purposes. That tip in could have been costly. I'm dying to see Amir get a shot at SF/PF. Probably won't happen, but think he would be of extreme value against either BOS or CLE and if Flip doesn't throw him in this series, my hope of seeing him in the next one if we win is almost non-existent barring some sort of divine intervention.

edited to add;

He did have 5 fouls this game so i get why he wasn't.

You can thank Nelson for that. Now if Chauncey would start guarding him that would be much appreciated.

FWIW, Ratliff was the guy on Dwight late in the game. Maxiell was guarding Rashard. Dwight didn't do much but turn the ball over when Max was on him. IMO, Maxiell is a better matchup on him, but without Sheed, Max is the only other guy who can guard Rashard or Turk.

And I don't get why Flip was calling Theo the best Dwight defender. Based on what? Size? Theo seems to constantly allow him to get great post position, and helps too much leaving Dwight open for putbacks. Sheed or Max will always be my first 2 options on him.

Something that upset me in the 2nd half of this one was Flip changing the strategy that worked so well in the first half. The first half "Good Flip" had a Stuckey, Afflalo backcourt with Tay playing the SF spot. The result? A big run. Single handedly building a 14 point lead. Second half, No Arron, and he goes with the Rip/Stuckey backcourt that always just turns into the Rip brick-fest. Sure enough, that's exactly what happend. I don't understand why Flip can't see what works and what doesn't when it's staring him in the face.

I was wondering the same thing.

Rip too often gets selfish when he is running with the bench. He'll run down and pull up for a jumper without batting an eye, much less thinking of passing to the guys on the floor with him.

Looks like different players present different matchup problems. It's a total team effort.