Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy takes questions at the press conference following his team's elimination from the playoffs at the hands of the Detroit Pistons last night.

Photo by Allen Einstein, NBAE/Getty Images

The last The Morning After post of the 2007/2008 season is here. Let's go around the tubes:

• Henry Abbott, TrueHoop:

  Anyone besides me disappointed in Orlando's offense down the stretch last night? (Highlights.)No one created a shot for anybody else. Almost nobody could get to the rim down the stretch. We had, essentially, Keith Bogans or Rashard Lewis hitting threes, or the occasional Hedo Turkoglu drive. And when the ball went to Dwight Howard, the Pistons just took it away. It was hard to watch. Most of the credit surely goes to the Pistons' defense, especially that majestic Tayshaun Prince shot, but I'm thinking that team needs a ball-handler who can create opportunities under duress.

  Yeah, the offense indeed stagnated last night. It almost looked like -- gulp -- Brian Hill was coaching that team. Incidentally, I think Nelson can be that ball-handler, in time.

• Kelly Dwyer, Ball Don't Lie:

  And so we say goodbye to the Orlando Magic, mindful of and unsurprised by the limitations that are sending the team home in the second round, but hopeful that the learning process and improvin' season has just begun.

  Dwyer includes his take on what the Magic need to do this offseason to become true contenders in 08/09. I'll refer back to it later this summer.

• Matt Watson, FanHouse:

  It's difficult to convey context in a sound bite, but after listening and watching Nelson address the media before and after three of the five games in this series, it's obvious the man is more competitive and confident than arrogant. His prediction didn't come true, but that's not to say his team didn't gain the respect of every person in Detroit's locker room. As Flip Saunders said during his post-game press conference, "They're a team that's going to be here a long time."

  I wasn't too pleased with Jameer after he stunk-up the offense in Game Four, but he's undoubtedly the leader of this team and he's earned my respect. I liked that he guaranteed a win. He has a great attitude and I'm happy he's a part of this team's future... although five years and $35 million is a bit more than I would have offered him...

• Bethlehem Shoals, The Sporting Blog:

  Wide: I probably said this before the last Pistons/Magic game, and ended up being wrong. Now it's come true. Rodney Stuckey will be darn good -- judging by tonight, he is already -- and will have many more playoff performances like this before his days are through. Plus his emergence is eerily similar to that of Tayshaun in the championship year.

  Trading the pick that yielded Stuckey may go down as the worst move in the Otis Smith/Dave Twardzik era. In Otis' defense, the trade looked pretty good at the time, and we got some solid production out of Carlos Arroyo until he fell off the face of the earth. Seriously. Matt from Hardwood Paroxysm asked me the other day, "What happened to Arroyo?" and I had to think for a second about to whom he might be referring.

  I forgot he was on the team.

• Basketbawful:

  Orlando managed to miss 12 freethrows and commit 21 turnovers...which led to 34 points for the Pistons. So basically -- MATH ALERT!! -- the Magic gave Detroit 46 free points, which is a lot to give away in a 5-point loss.

  As you can imagine, there's much more where that came from. Basketbawful never runs out of things to say about bad teams.

• The Blowtorch (channelling Hedo Turkoglu in the Magic's timeout before their last meaningful possession):

  Duh-white, do not have worry. Hedo will make basketball dunk shot for to win game. Only 2 points is dunk shot, so Hedo make two dunk shot. 4 point!

  Read the whole post in all its irreverent glory. I laughed a lot, and maybe I cried a little.

• Natalie, Need4Sheed:

  Surprisingly Dwight Howard walked off court as Rasheed Wallace was waling over to shake his hand after the game. Turkoglu bolted too.

  I'm a bit disappointed that the Magic didn't show good sportsmanship at the end, but then again, I'm not the one whose season the Pistons ended.

• Pradamaster, Bullets Forever:

  Capped-out Magic: Orlando's departure means the Southeast Division won't be represented in the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight season. It also gives me hope, because unless Otis Smith pulls a rabbit out of his hat, this might be the best Orlando has to offer in the future. About the only person from which we can expect internal development is Dwight Howard.

  I have a feeling PM might be onto something here. We'll look at the cap situation in a future post. Several posts, in all likelihood.

• Steve Weinman, CelticsBlog:

  This was an Orlando team that spent an entire season talking about how it wasn't getting enough love from the media, about how it belonged right up there with the rest of the Eastern elite.

  [....]

  This Magic team simply isn't there yet.

  I agree with Steve on that last point: the Magic aren't there yet. But I still don't think the Magic got enough credit for what they were able to accomplish in a single season. They're still better than the Cavaliers, and might have been able to beat the Celtics in a seven-game series if they had the opportunity. However, the road to Eastern Conference respectability runs through Auburn Hills. We'll be fine next year.

• Doug Smith, the Toronto Star:

  Okay, so some of us are out last night celebrating the Media Relations Staff Of The Year Banquet and Buntoss (replete with food, fun, frivolity and a cocktail or two) and I swear I looked up at the television and saw Marcin Gortat and Walter Herrmann on the court at the same time in the Orlando-Detroit game.

  I'm thinking if I could have seen Alex Radojevic guarding Mengke Bateer in a playoff game that might be the only better matchup. Maybe.

  The NBA: Where You Never Know Happens.

  I included this post because it mentioned Marcin Gortat. That's it.

Okay, so a ton of links later, where do we stand? On shaky ground. Any respect we earned in the regular season -- and there wasn't much of it -- is gone now. But we have all offseason to worry about that. 3QC isn't going anywhere. Stay tuned for posts recapping the season, evaluating players' performance, discussing the draft and free-agency period, and so on.

Go Magic.

Chauncey Billups didn't even play last night, but that didn't prevent him from getting an assist on his linescore anyway. Click the image to open a larger version in a new tab or window:

ESPN.com

Hedo Turkoglu covers his nose after taking an elbow from a Detroit player. His Magic lose, 91-86, and were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

Photo by Allen Einstein, NBAE/Getty Images

21 and 3.

Those are the only numbers that matter when discussing this game. The Magic turned the ball over 21 times and forced just three turnovers themselves. Logic indicates that disparity won't get it done on any level of basketball, yet we almost stole one from Detroit tonight.

But in the end, the Pistons prevailed thanks to their clutch free-throw shooting and defense, not necessarily in that order. Looking at their defense -- not just the deflections, steals, and transition baskets, but the whole thing -- it's hard to imagine them losing more than three or four games the rest of the postseason. We actually performed (relatively) above-average in this series, with an offensive rating of 105.9, which slightly exceeds the Pistons' regular-season defensive rating of 104.2. But that's a bit misleading, because the Pistons really turn up the defensive heat when it counts the most. For most of the game, the Pistons play great defense. In crunch-time, they take it to a whole other level. We already saw the Pistons hold the Magic to 25% shooting in the fourth quarter of Game Three. Tonight, the Pistons held the Magic to 0 field goals for the first 8:18 of the final period. I repeat: the Pistons, missing their best player, held a 52-win team with the league's fifth-most efficient offense without a bucket for 8-plus fourth-quarter minutes.

We did plenty of things wrong tonight, but showed some poise at the end. We could have folded after watching the Pistons go on a 17-4 run to start the fourth period, but we didn't, going on a 7-1 run of our own to draw to within 1 point. A Rasheed Wallace miss careened out-of-bounds off a Magic player with 20 seconds to play, giving the Pistons had the ball and, more than likely, the game. The Magic were forced to foul, Rip Hamilton nailed his free throws (note: this is a pun; check the notes after the jump), but we still had a chance, trailing by 3.

On the last Magic possession of Game Four, Hedo Turkoglu took too much time sizing up Detroit's defense, giving his team no chance to get an offensive board if he missed the shot... which he did, as we know. Tonight, he wasted little time: he made up his mind that he would drive to his right around the defense of Tayshaun Prince and dunk the ball, cutting Detroit's lead to 1 and forcing the Pistons to enter a foul-shooting competition.

Prince had other ideas.

Although Turkoglu got the step on Prince, the lanky forward was recovered quickly enough to swoop in and block the dunk cleanly at the rim. Stop what you're doing right now (which is, I would hope, reading this post) and head over to Need4Sheed to look at the video. I'll give you a few seconds to pick your jaw up off the floor and/or wipe the tears from your eyes.

Back? Okay. Good.

After the Magic fouled, Hamilton made two free throws to boost the lead to 5, and Detroit had the game in-hand.

And in a game marred by sloppy play by the Magic, it's fitting that their next possession ended with a turnover. Keith Bogans, firing the ball in from the left sideline, wanted to pass to Turkoglu, who cut toward the baseline under Pistons' basket. Bogans lead him too far and the ball sailed out of bounds. DEE-troit BAS-ket-ball. Hamilton hits two free throws. Bogans comes down the other end and makes a meaningless fingeroll, the Pistons inbound, and the clock expires.

FIN.

But even in this close game in which they turned the ball over on one-quarter of their possessions (?!), the Magic might have been in it, or even won, if they had just made their damn free throws. Instead, they let their playoff inexperience show, and connected on 16 of their 28 free throws. As expected, Dwight Howard "lead" the way in the CLANK department, going 6-of-15 from the stripe. Howard's a notoriously awful foul shooter, but 40% is bad, even for him. Rashard Lewis, a usually accurate free throw shooter, went 4-of-6.

Throughout this season, many Magic fans found themselves lamenting a lack of a "Plan B" for the team to use when its three-pointers weren't falling. Tonight, their gameplan was to get Howard -- who struggled in Game Four, shooting 3-of-12 for 8 points -- involved in the offense early. And the team used this plan to a fault; they drove it into the ground. Several times in the first quarter, Lewis got the ball on the wing and assumed the triple-threat position, yet kept his eyes locked on Howard.

And locked.

And locked.

And rather than pass the ball to somebody else, or dribble, or shoot, or anything, Lewis would throw the ball to Dwight, even though both Lewis' and Howard's defenders had their hands in the passing lanes. The result? Turnovers. As we mentioned.

But it wasn't all bad, I suppose. Jameer Nelson, heavily (and unfairly -- I still can't get over that) criticized for his guarantee of a Magic victory, did his part to aid his team's cause. He scored 14 on 6-of-7 shooting, including 2-of-3 from beyond the arc. And he played solid defense on Rodney Stuckey for most of the night, although Stuckey warmed up as the game progressed. He showed poise, unlike Howard, his co-captain, who always looks flustered when he plays the Pistons. I hope some Pistons fans will at least respect Nelson's effort.

Perhaps surprisingly, this loss doesn't bother me too much. Yes, we played poorly, but it wasn't the sort of lazy/awful brand of basketball that killed us in our December-through-January slump. Yes, our season is over, but for the first time in a long time, we know we'll be back, and better, next season. We're relevant again, and have earned some respect around the league -- not enough, but some, which is more than we had last year.

And, on a more selfish note, the season ending allows me to do stuff I've missed out on over the past several months: spending time with my girlfriend, spending time with my cat, reading for fun, etc. And I can sleep easily knowing that this year was only the beginning of the climb back to elite status in this league.

So, Detroit advances to the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth straight year. We can only hope to have similar success. Kudos to the Pistons and to their fans.

Two brief game notes after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Billy Donovan discussed the Magic and his successor as the team's head coach, Stan Van Gundy, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel

File photo by Red Huber, the Orlando Sentinel

Might these bullets comprise the last news post of the season? One can only hope not.

• Mike Bianchi has an interview with Billy Donovan, the man who would have coached the Magic in he hadn't changed his mind and decided to return to the University of Florida. Anyone could have told you, even before the season, that the Magic would be better off with Stan Van Gundy than with Donovan. And now, Donovan has the class (not to mention common sense) to admit it. He also refers to himself in the third person:

  "As far as getting that team to take the next step, I don't think there's any question Stan Van Gundy was the right coach for the job," Donovan said from his office in Gainesville. "You have to have a level of humility in this situation and face facts. And the facts are Billy Donovan has never coached an NBA game in his life. There was obviously going to be a learning curve for me. The job Stan has done this year has been phenomenal, and the job he did with the Miami Heat doesn't get talked about enough."

• If you want to see footage of Jameer Nelson's infamous guarantee of a Game Five victory, Need4Sheed has it. Nelson's delivery doesn't exactly project confidence, to put it charitably, but if the team for which I play just pissed away its season on its home floor to its archrival, I wouldn't sound enthusiastic either.
• Two cool updates from SLAM today:
  • Tim "TADOne" Darga's game notes from the Magic's loss to the Pistons last Saturday. He was there live. Good stuff. Check out the first point after "3Q." My, how things change.
  • This week, Shoals' Quotemonger feature translates Rashard Lewis' assessment that the Pistons are better than the Magic, among other soundbytes.
• The Pistons' Rodney Stuckey made the NBA's All-Rookie Second Team. You're welcome for that pick, Detroit. For those scoring at home, Detroit has a young, solid point guard who may one day take over for its All-Star (Hall-of-Fame?) starter; we have Carlos Arroyo, whom Stan Van Gundy banished to the end of the bench and who will likely leave in free-agency. Wonder who won that trade.
• In cautioning Heat fans not to expect Pat Riley-level greatness from the Heat's new coach, Erik Spoelstra, Ira Winderman name-drops Van Gundy, who coached the Heat for two-plus seasons. Winderman has this to say about the Magic's current head coach:

  As for Van Gundy, the Detroit series will not define him. Instead, it is the fact that he now has driven each of his last three (and only three) teams at least to the conference semifinals. And that's not even counting the Heat team he got settled before Riley finished the drive to the 2006 NBA title.

Oh, and by the way, Chauncey Billups is ready for action, apparently.

Eastern Conference Semifinals
	@
Pistons Lead Series, 3-1
The Palace of Auburn Hills
7:00 PM
TNT
Probable starters:
Jameer Nelson	PG	Chauncey Billups
Maurice Evans	SG	Richard Hamilton
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Tayshaun Prince
Rashard Lewis	PF	Jason Maxiell
Dwight Howard	C	Rasheed Wallace
Series Central

Let's get this bit of news out of the way first: Chris McCoskey reports (thanks, DBB) that Chauncey Billups will play tonight if he feels ready; that is, the Pistons have no plans to hold him out as a precautionary measure. I'd expect that Rodney Stuckey would start once more for Detroit if Billups doesn't feel well enough to play.

The Magic need to win three straight games to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals and become the eighth team in NBA history to comeback from a 3-1 deficit. Obviously, that's a tall order, especially against a Pistons team that's surging after its spectacular come-from-behind victory in Orlando on Saturday.

The Pistons had one three-game losing streak this season: from January 18th to January 21st, they dropped consecutive games to the Sacramento Kings, to the Chicago Bulls, and to the Magic. In each of those losses, the Pistons shot an effective field goal percentage well below their average. But the real reason the Pistons lost those games was their poor defense, specifically their tendency to foul. The Bulls and Magic shot 36 and 37 free throws, respectively, in those games, in which the Pistons were the visitors. Hmmm.

And in those losses the Kings and the Bulls, the Pistons allowed their opponent's bench to erupt. Kevin Martin, Mike Bibby, and Ron Artest combined for 58 of Sacramento's 100 points; similarly, Ben Gordon contributed 33 off Chicago's pine. Since the Magic's reserves provide little in the way of offense, the Magic's better bet is to drive aggressively to the basket and hope to get fouled, then convert on the subsequent free-throws. Defensive free-throw rate was the Pistons' biggest weakness in the regular season, and it showed in their only three-game skid of the year.

Two caveats: three games in the middle of January does not a great sample size make; and the Kings' big bench scorers in that game typically start. But I thought it was worth examining nonetheless.

Tipoff's at 7 on TNT. Our season could officially end at or around 9:30. Think about that one for a second.

Go Magic. Prove Jameer right.

As we covered earlier, there's no shortage of outrage/disbelief that Jameer Nelson, the Magic point guard who averaged a mere 10.9 points and 5.6 assists this season, guaranteed a victory for the Magic tomorrow night, and to a much lesser extent, that Rashard Lewis thinks the Magic are a better team than the Pistons. Oh, the nerve of that Jameer Nelson! How dare one of the team's captains expresses confidence in himself and in his teammates, even though they face impossible odds!

All that sound and fury -- seriously, he's the team's captain, and he's not going to guarantee a loss, so get over it -- relegates discussion of the non-call at the end of Game Four to the background. Admittedly, I wasn't that ticked-off about it, but then I read this update from John Denton. Stan Van Gundy is pissed. Emphases added:

"Let's just say this _ (Maxiell) is in the restricted area, it's a block at any other time of the season," Van Gundy fumed following Orlando's practice Monday morning. "(Referee) Mike Callahan raises his hand and you can see it on the tape _ his hand's up and his hand's down and I can't explain that."

Using the video from NBA.com, I tried to get screencaps of the non-call, which looks a lot more obvious here than it did live, from my vantage point in the upper bowl of Amway Arena. Here are the results:

Fig. 1: The beginning of the play. Hedo Turkoglu (with the ball) is isolated against Tayshaun Prince about eleven feet above the foul line. Note Jason Maxiell, the figure I've circled in yellow, lurking in the painted area. And, if you're both a Magic fan and a masochist, take a look at the game clock on the lower-right of the scoreboard.

Fig. 2: Hedo, after driving left, elevates to take a shot. Note that Jason Maxiell has slid over to try to draw a charge, but his foot (circled in yellow) remains in the restricted area. Again, if you're a glutton for punishment, look at the game clock. Hedo took entirely too long to make his move, but that's not the point of this exercise.

Fig. 3: Turkoglu, airborne, collides with Maxiell, still grounded. His foot is still inside the restricted area.

Fig. 4: Turkoglu misss the shot and his teammate, Dwight Howard, misses a tip-in. Two seconds remain on the clock. The thing to notice here is the baseline official, Mike Callahan, raising his right hand to signal a foul while using his left hand to put his whistle in his mouth.

Fig. 5: not even a full second later, Callahan lowers his hand and decides not to call the foul. The game ends, but not before the head official, Joe Crawford, reviews the play on a courtside monitor. He rules that no foul occurred on the play.

IN NO WAY AM I SUGGESTING that Callahan or any of the officials have it out for the Magic, nor am I suggesting that his change-of-heart cost the Magic the game. There's no shortage of blame for that:

• Keyon Dooling
  • for losing his cool at the end of the game, earning himself a technical foul while arguing a shooting foul called on him. Richard Hamilton missed the technical free throw -- Detroit's only missed freebie in the game -- but it still reflects poorly on him, a veteran on an otherwise young team.
• Dwight Howard for
  • not demanding the ball;
  • for missing several gimmes at the basket.
• Jameer Nelson
  • for grinding the offense to a halt in the third quarter by taking too many jumpers.
• Hedo Turkoglu
  • for taking so gosh-darn long to evaluate the final play that he left no time for Howard (or any of his teammates) to get an offensive rebound and a good look at a tip-in.
• Stan Van Gundy
  • for not resting Howard more than he did;
  • for not putting a taller defender on Richard Hamilton down the stretch;
  • for failing to design an effective play at the end of the game.

I merely aim to point out that this non-call (which the official clearly intended to call in the first place) made a tremendous difference in the game, certainly more than the infamous phantom three-pointer that Chauncey Billups made at the end of the third quarter of Game Two, yet no one is talking about it. Of course, the league will offer the standard conciliatory b.s. it always does in these sorts of situations, and nothing about this series will change. The Magic will still have to play Game Five in Detroit, facing a three-games-to-one deficit and incredibly long odds that they will advance.

[Note by Ben Q Rock, 05/12/08 5:58 PM EDT]: 3QC reader Andrew emails this theory:

Is it at all possible that the ref raised his hand to call the charge on Turkoglu but realized that Maxiell was in the restricted zone and put his hand down? Seems like a plausible explanation, right? Like, at least one worth considering in the interest of balance? I mean, the fact that Maxiell's foot was in the circle means he can't take a charge but it absolutely does not mean that anything he does in the circle is automatically a block.

I certainly wouldn't rule that out. Perhaps Callahan believed the game shouldn't end on a foul call, but that doesn't excuse -- at least not to me -- his decision to start to call a foul, then to change his mind.

Jameer Nelson, seen here after the Magic beat the Raptors in Game One of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, told media on Saturday he expects the Magic to win Game Five in Detroit this Thursday.

File photo by Fernando Medina, NBAE/Getty Images

There's simply too much hullaballoo surrounding Jameer Nelson's assertion of a Magic win tomorrow night for me to stand. Here are but a few expressions of outrage. If you missed it, here's what he said (from the Associated Press via ESPN.com):

"We're going to make some adjustments and we're going to win this game," Nelson said after Orlando's 90-89 loss on Saturday. "I'm not being arrogant or cocky or anything like that. I think [Saturday] we let it slip out of our hands. Game 2 we let it slip out of our hands. We're going to win this game in Detroit."

Jameer is just doing his job, and not only as a player. It's easy to forget that, although he's the fourth option on offense, he and Dwight Howard are the official captains of this team. And since Dwight hasn't said much of anything since this series began, it falls on Jameer to stand up for himself and for the team. Instead of scratching my head (or pounding it against the wall), I'm more inclined to applaud Jameer for this move. No, he's not the best player on the team, but he is a captain, and he's doing what captains are supposed to do both on and off he court: lead. I'm sure Magic GM Otis Smith and coach Stan Van Gundy are pleased with their young point guard; they had a chat with both him and Dwight two months ago to discuss the importance of leadership.

That said, we'll all be much more impressed if Jameer backs up his talk by leading the Magic to victory tomorrow night, which he can do by distributing the ball and by -- more importantly -- not jacking 20-footers out of the flow of the offense.