Official Game Preview: Hawks at Magic

[lethalweapon3]

Voted “Most Likely to Quit Trying to Look Like Rajon Rondo.”

 

We’ve seen plenty of times this season when our Atlanta Hawks have to pick up an easy spare, and roll out a gutterball in the neighboring lane. That’s whether it involves blowing anybody-on-one fast breaks, or playing down to the level of a bad team on a losing skid. So the home-and-home series on back-to-back nights with the struggling Orlando Magic (1:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Florida) is the furthest thing from a sure shot.

Including a loss in ATL on MLK Day, the Magic have gone just 2-15 since January 1, a scale of futility matched only by the Phoenix Suns. Of course, half of the Suns’ wins came courtesy of embarrassingly poor play from the Hawks just a couple weeks ago. Orlando is also just 1-8 in the Dirty South Division. So, naturally, this two-game series is setting up to be a barn-burner.

Thanks to a great 19-13 start, the MLK Day loss only dropped the Magic to 20-20 as they remained in the thick of the playoff chase, an impressive 4^th in the East. But like a Lake Eola jogger, Scott Skiles’ club finds itself going in circles, and they’ve been getting lapped by one Eastern Conference team after another. Half of Orlando’s wins in 2016 came last Sunday at home, thanks to a red-hot Boston Celtics team that shares Atlanta’s 30-22 record.

Since that victory, the past week included road losses in San Antonio and OKC, and Friday’s home loss to their old coach Doc Rivers’ Clippers. They held fourth-quarter leads, however, against both the Spurs and Thunder before melting late. So the good news is, it isn’t like they’re not competing and forcing the action, primed to trip up opponents that don’t bring their A-game.

As an additional silver lining, Orlando can’t sink below the plankton of the East (Nets and Sixers) no matter how badly this slump is, and a spirited string of victories puts them right back in postseason play, as they’re just 4.5 games behind the 8^th-seed.

Getting up off the canvas for the Magic won’t be possible until center Nikola Vucevic and point guard Elfrid Payton show they’re willing and able, respectively, to defend at their positions and involve their teammates at the other end. The duo share the a net rating (-18.8 points per 100 possessions) in calendar year 2016, the second-worst in the league (after Hawks’ basketball snatcher Tyson Chandler and P.J. Tucker in Phoenix). That includes an NBA-worst 90.4 O-Rating, and they’re tied with Toronto’s Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas with the second-worst D-Rating (110.5) among 1-5 pairs.

For the NBA’s reigning record-holder for assists in a single game, Coach Skiles is learning it’s actually easier to do than to say. Payton’s struggled through injuries in the past month, but his passing marks (5.6 APG; 5.4 since January 1) have slipped since his All-Rookie 1^st Team season (6.5 APG). He’s also struggled to stay in front of his man, or even produce turnovers with help defense. His 2.2 steal% (incl. 9 steals in 13 games since January 1) is way down from the 2.9% that ranked 5^th in the NBA last season.

Skiles’ first move is to shift Victor Oladipo (37 points, 4 assists, no turnovers @ OKC last Wednesday) to the point, or at least allow him to dominate the ballhandling duties. Oladipo has not been as much of a turnover machine as he was in his rookie season, but both he and Payton are prone to making egregious mistakes in crunch time. Both players could have their hands full today with Atlanta’s Jeff Teague. After a season-long struggle, Teague could be in line to earn Eastern Conference Player of the Week (58.3 FG%, 58.3 3FG%, 90.0 FT%, 19.3 PPG, 5.0 APG, 2.3 TOs per game, 1.7 SPG) with a strong effort today.

Orlando’s leading scorer and rebounder, Vooch will get his obligatory double-doubles (10-and-11 @. ATL on MLK Day; 20-and-11 vs. the Hawks on Dec. 20). But despite Skiles’ push to get more active hands out of his center, Vucevic still looks like a crossing guard as opponents drive into the paint and opposing stretch-bigs plop copious jumpers from outside.

Vucevic is a poster child for America's Budball victims. The Magic grabbed 11 offensive rebounds in last month’s game in Atlanta, yet they only managed 81 points, a season-best for the Hawks defense. Mike Budenholzer’s troops allowed the Pacers to nab 16 more O-Rebs and 5 more D-Rebs on Friday night, but it only served to make things interesting in a 102-96 win. That victory raised Atlanta’s record to 16-8 when they give up at least 12 offensive rebounds, 14-14 otherwise.

He hears it from fans and a former Hawks coach that accuses him of playing with cement shoes around the defensive glass, and he hears it from the guy with a statue outside Philips Arena that he doesn’t take advantage of drives against slow-footed bigs like Vucevic. Yet Al Horford (62.5 TS%; 5 O-Rebs in his last 7 games) adheres to his head coach’s demands. His 21 heroic points against Indiana on Friday were the most he tallied since Jan. 9.

Getting Horford lots of open looks and encouraging him to drive to the lane and get to the line will keep Vucevic and the Magic bigs guessing all day what he’ll pull out of his hat. A strong Teague-Horford combo should be enough to have Orlando looking forward to Super Bowl prop bets by game’s end.

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

 

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[Dnice]

I see they are concerned about Santa Clara and not playing basketball..... Sorry asses  

[RedDawg#8]

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz  Slow start....again.  We seem to never be up for games on Sundays, regardless of opponent. Its like we are in competition to see how far we can fall behind and make a comeback

 

On a plus side I do like the black top red bottoms mismatch WAYYY better than the opposite combo.

[Dnice]

Oh well they recovered somewhat, should have better energy from the starters, though.

[LamarHampton]

Jeff playing great, I like this aggressive play. We really should be able to handle this team pretty easily. If we lose this one I'm going to break something. Not really trying hard enough so far.

[Lurker]

What I see today is confirming what I have felt. This team is coasting against teams they feel like are bad teams, when they don't realize they can't do that.

[nathan2331]

Ain't that some shit.

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

[Ruckus]

Nique, STFU next time.

[LamarHampton]

Have I mentioned how much I hate Nique as an announcer? f ucking jinx.

[Lurker]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....this is the new Phoenix Suns. Can't buy anything clutch at all. Doesn't matter who takes the shot on this team to try to win, they will all choke! ALL of them.

 

But they didn't deserve this game at all. As I said, this team does not try against teams they think are bad.

Until the 4th quarter. This was almost a repeat of the @Phoenix game ironically.

[Peoriabird]

So why did Milsap just throw the ball up towards the end of regulation after he secured the offensive rebound????

[rd79]

Just now, Peoriabird said:

So why did Milsap just throw the ball up towards the end of regulation after he secured the offensive rebound????

He thought he was fouled...

[Peoriabird]

2 minutes ago, rd79 said:

He thought he was fouled...

He always thinks he is fouled...You only throw it up there when you hear a whistle!!!!

[benhillboy]

58 minutes ago, LamarHampton said:

Jeff playing great, I like this aggressive play. We really should be able to handle this team pretty easily. If we lose this one I'm going to break something. Not really trying hard enough so far.

Have you chosen your object to break?  Proceed.

I tuned in to the game with 5 minutes left so I only saw the Hawks playing well.  I can only imagine what happened prior, this appearing to be another game where the offensive execution lags behind the defense all game.

If someone told me the Hawks would beat Indy -20 on the glass I wouldn't been like "okay".   Tell me we'd lose to Orlando after grabbing 50 boards and I'd think you were mad.  WTF.

And I've officially reached the breaking point with Dominique calling games.  His dimness upsets me deeply.

[rd79]

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

He always thinks he is fouled...You only throw it up there when you hear a whistle!!!!

true, tell him ;-)

[Lurker]

The story of the season is going to be the offense not being adjusted just in case Korver came back a corpse (and that's essentially what he is now, a corpse).

[benhillboy]

Did we have a foul to give at the end?  

[Lurker]

Just now, benhillboy said:

Did we have a foul to give at the end?

Nope. With the last one I thought they should have tried to run it down to 8-10 seconds, gave the foul, and made Phoenix inbound again under fierce pressure. With this one, not at all. When Nikola got it, it was over as Horford isn't big enough to contest him.

Let's talk some more about how Horford had a point guard on him and yet he wasn't able to make a basket, I mean dawg, worth a max?

I'll say it again, I agree with JayBird. If Horford wants the full max, let him walk and rebuild.

[NBASupes]

Worst clutch team in the NBA. 

[Lurker]

They may have also made a shot, but I'd much rather Fournier or Oladipo get the ball than Nikola there. Horford really isn't a good one on one defender.