Recap: Magic 110, Cavs 95 (Or, It’s not Magic. It’s the three-point shot.)
2010-12-28Overview: The Magic buried the Cavaliers by shooting 19-31 from beyond the arc en route to a 110-95 victory. Gilbert Arenas led all scorers with 22 points off the bench.
Teams are allowed to shoot from behind that line, and in fact shots made from beyond that line count for more points bullets:
– The Cavs were actually really competitive in this game, mostly because they played with more confidence on the offensive end than they’ve had in a while. Mo Williams set the tone by making some aggressive drives and hitting a few tough pull-up jumpers, and the team moved the ball and looked to attack early and often.
Antawn Jamison spent a lot more time in the paint than he usually does, and was more patient down there as well — instead of throwing up the first floater he dreamed up, he’d make multiple moves and wait until he actually had a good angle to the basket. And he did hit a few of his patented crazy runner/floaters as well. Sessions also had a promising game (he made jumpers! multiple jumpers!), and in the third quarter the Cavs ran an actual Princeton set to set JJ up with a dunk off a nice Varejao pass.
I actually didn’t mind the way the Cavs played defense at all, strangely enough. Howard finished with 12 points and 7 turnovers, the Hedo pick-and-roll wasn’t all that effective, and Arenas didn’t get to the basket much. And, believe it or not, the Cavs did a better job of contesting threes than they normally do. They didn’t run the Magic off the line, of course, but they weren’t giving up wide-open threes, and most of the time there was a Cav close enough to the shooter to contest the shot a little bit.
On Tuesday night, none of that mattered, because the Magic had themselves a three party. They hit threes in transition. They hit contested threes. They hit post-and-kick threes. They hit threes of of dribble-penetration. They hit pull-up threes in semi-transition. They hit crazy buzzer-beating threes. The entire team was absolutely on fire, and there’s no way that the Cavs were going to win. I’d call it a basketball deus ex machina, except the end result of the game was exactly what everybody expected it would be. Also, Earl Clark made jumpers on key possessions. Come on. That’s just not fair.
That’s all I really have for tonight. Not much more to say about this one, except for this: Last season, I was extremely confident that the Cavs could beat any team if they played their best game. This season, I am extremely confident that any team can beat the Cavs if that team plays their best game. The way the Magic were shooting tonight, there was no way the Cavs were going to be able to avoid their fourth straight loss.
At least we can tank and still keep our best players at the same time. After all, most cavs players are actually pretty good with a superstar on the team (although nobody in college except maybe Kyrie Irving is gunna be a superstar)
I was at the game last night and started yelling at B. Scott to get Jamario out of the game. He’s a 3 guard who can’t dribble or shoot. A guy behind me says I’m wrong, “Dude, we need to play Jamario Moon more. We’d be over .500 if we had Moon in there.”
He was serious and starts ragging on Parker..Parker might not be sexy, but he sure is flexible (he plays the 1, 2, and 3) and has a lot of technical skills.
Moon is NOT GOOD!
It was a loss but if we continue to play like this, we’ll start winning. I’d like to see less Moon and more Manny. Eventhough Manny hasn’t done much when he’s had the chance at least he still has a lot of development potential where I think Moon is somewhat past his ‘development stage’ (not saying he can’t get somewhat better).
I’d also like to see what Gee can do, he probably won’t play any time against the Bobcats unless it’s a blowout, but at some point soon we’ll have to get him in there before his 10-day(?) contract ends.
First off, Andy was amazing. I couldn’t believe how good he played against Dwight last night. The Magic were -1 with Dwight in, the problem was +16 without him. I also though Ramon had a very promising game, he doesn’t have much of a shot yet, but he had a nice mix of jumpers, drives to the hoop, decent amount of assists, and he took care of the ball pretty well. Last, I can’t believe nobody has talked about how BAD moon is for this team. He is lazy and doesn’t contribute to the game at all! It’s basically 4… Read more »
@ Adan, thats becasue he wasnt really all that good at D in the post then. We had Z to play the stronger guys and Andy would take the quick guys. But now?? he is playing D as well as anyone in the post. You expect perkins to do it. you expect bynum to do it because they have the size to play against those guys. But Andy is not nearly as big as those guys but STILL shuts down the best in the game. He needs to be on the All Defense team….unfortunately i think he can only get… Read more »
Yeah, they hung with the Magic for three quarters last night and all played hustle ball. Mo was hitting the floor fighting for the loose ball, even JJ looked to be doing some boxing out and hitting the offensive boards. And Andy’s game absolutely was a work of art. He really is showing himself to be an excellent and smart player. He fought for every rebound, shut Howard down in the post repeatedly, hit jump shots, finished at the rim, made a great pass to JJ, had a chase down block, and topped it all off by punching himself in… Read more »
No bullets for Varejão’s incredible game? I think it was one of the best of his carrer, his defense on Howard was beautiful. Wish he played like that in that Orlando Series…
I cant believe this, I never ever ever would have expected that after 30ish games the NETS would have a better record than the cavs, whoah.
despite their roster overhaul the Magic are the exact same team and yet the Cavs with new coaching and philosophy still cant figure it out that the Magic shoot tons of 3’s….from part of the game i watched which was last part of first half and most of second i knew when the magic would shoot 3’s cuz their guys were open or wide open…not sure what the defensive philosophy is on this team…it seemed they were content with keeping Howard away from the ball but not guarding anyone else….i dont think howard can beat a team by himself and… Read more »