The Magic's Jameer Nelson tied for the team lead in scoring with 22 points, but it didn't matter, as Orlando fell to Detroit, 100-93, facing a 2-0 series deficit in its best-of-seven Eastern Conference Semifinals matchup.

Photo by Allen Einstein, NBAE/Getty Images

Let's get one thing out of the way: the Magic did not lose tonight's game because of the three-point basket that the Pistons were erroneously awarded at the end of the third quarter. Odenized (who else?) has the video of the whole bizarre sequence at YouTube:

As you can see, the game-clock malfunctioned, and only three-tenths of a section went off the clock despite the Pistons inbounding the ball, taking three dribbles, passing, taking another dribble, then passing again to Chauncey Billups for the shot.

That basket gave the Pistons a 78-76 lead heading into the fourth quarter. The Magic had 12 minutes to overcome a two-point deficit. Yes, they should have started the quarter with a one-point lead, but there's no way to guarantee that it would have made any difference. A lot can happen in 12 minutes of basketball, so let's not waste our time complaining about an error the officials were not even allowed to fix, given the current replay rules, and instead use in constructively on figuring out why we lost.

First, we turned the ball over entirely too much (19 turnovers on 87 possessions), forcing the issue early in the game and down the stretch. Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, and Dwight Howard combined for 17 of those turnovers, although we can attribute most of Dwight's miscues to soreness in his left thumb, which made it hard for him to hang onto passes. Our gameplan seemed to be "get the ball to Dwight!" and, although it worked well when executed, both Lewis and Turkoglu were guilty of telegraphing their entry passes, which the Pistons easily deflected or stole. Turkoglu in particular had a horrible offensive game. His rushed three-point jumper -- there were 21 seconds on the shot clock. Turk! -- with the Magic down 2 points and 48 seconds to play doomed us. It's bad enough he shot it just 3 seconds into the possession. What makes it worse is the fact that he did not set his feet OR follow through. Our greatest fears have come true: Hedo, our greatest fourth-quarter player, has developed a hero complex.

This shot was eerily similar to the fadeaway three for which he settled at the buzzer of the Magic's 103-102 loss to the Timberwolves in mid-April. After that game, Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said, "I didn't like the shot because he wasn't set." Well, I hope Hedo hears it from Stan and from the media after tonight's game: that rushed shot, more than anything else we did offensively, doomed us.

There's also the matter of defense. We held Richard Hamilton to 14 points on 4-of-18 shooting, but we had no answer for Detroit's other three big guns: Billups, Tayshaun Prince, and Rasheed Wallace combined for 62 points on 23-of-42 shooting. Now, Billups' total -- 28 -- is a bit nflated due to the fouling we did late in the game when it got out of hand, and Jameer Nelson was no slouch offensively with 22 points of his own. Still, when Wallace and Prince create mismatches like that, Detroit is tough to beat. We simply don't have an answer for those two players. Prince is too quick for Turkoglu to guard, yet too tall for Maurice Evans to guard. Similarly, Wallace has too much range for Dwight to handle, yet too good a post game for Rashard to handle. And that, in a nutshell, is how the Pistons have stayed on top of the East for so long: they have four guys who can beat tyou, by themselves, on any given night.

But let's give ourselves some credit for fighting back from a fourteen-point deficit against a superior team on its home floor. Let's also credit the Pistons, for clamping down on defense when it mattered most: we scored 17 points on 25 fourth-quarter possessions for an offensive rating of 68.0.

Let me recognize some strong efforts from our guys before I wrap this thing up: Jameer's 22 points were fantastic, and tonight was his best game against Detroit by far in his career. People may point to Billups' gaudy 28 points, but that doesn't tell the whole story. Jameer took, and made, some big shots of his own, and his five three-pointers are the only reason we were in the game in the second half anyway. And Dwight Howard, with 22 points and 18 rebounds, was tremendous. He fared well against each Piston who defended him, even throwing down a furious two-handed slam in the face of that #42 fellow on the Pistons, the one whose name escapes me.

Photo by Gregory Shamus, Getty Images

Dwight did a lot of the dirty work tonight and recovered nicely from his poor Game One effort.

I don't know the exact statistic, but if memory serves, when the team with home-court advantage in a seven-game series wins its first two games, it goes on to win the series 94% of the time. But I'm not counting us out quite yet. Turnovers and boneheaded shot-selection aside, we still played a heckuva game tonight, and as I said in the Hoops Addict podcast I did last night, there's no shame in losing to a better team, especially when you put up a fight, which we did tonight.

For more on tonight's game, check out Matt Watson's pregame interview with Rashard Lewis. Also check out this unscientific poll at OrlandoSentinel.com, in which 76% of respondents blame poor officiating for the Magic's loss tonight, at least at the time of this post.

Photo by Fernando Medina, NBAE/Getty Images

I could have written this recap last night, but I didn't feel like it. I had better things to do. The Magic had the same mindset earlier in the evening when they blew a fourteen-point lead to a Minnesota team still winless in thirteen tries on the road against Eastern opponents.

What'd we do well last night? Uh, we hit our three-pointers. That's about it.

• We didn't rebound (46-31 overall, 29-19 in the second half)
• We didn't hit our free throws (9 misses in a game we lost by a single point)
• We didn't do a good enough job getting the ball to Dwight Howard when it mattered (just two field goal attempts in the fourth quarter)
• We didn't close out on the Timberwolves' shooters (Randy Foye and Rashad McCants went 8-of-12 in the fourth quarter)
• and overall we just didn't give a damn, which is why some of the fans in attendance booed the team as it left the floor.

Sure, there were some nice plays; Rashard Lewis' follow dunk (pictured above) was nice, as was Adonal Foyle's open-floor rejection of Corey Brewer. But overall, it was a night to forget. If we don't win our final three games in convincing fashion, I'm going to be furious. Apathy extinguished the fire that motivated this team earlier this season. Hopefully, Stan Van Gundy and the coaching staff can light it once more before the playoffs start. Otherwise, we're headed for a first-round exit.

	vs.
49-29		19-59
Amway Arena
7:00 PM
Sun Sports
Probable starters:
Jameer Nelson	PG	Randy Foye
Maurice Evans	SG	Marko Jaric
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Kirk Snyder
Rashard Lewis	PF	Ryan Gomes
Dwight Howard	C	Al Jefferson
Season series:
6 Nov 2007: Magic 111, Timberwolves 103

We should have no trouble with Minnesota at all. The Timberwolves are a decent rebounding team (12th in offensive rebound rate, 15th in defensive rebound rate), but don't do anything else well. They have Al Jefferson, who'd be an All-Star if he played for a team anywhere close to .500. He's one of only four players in the league this year averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds; Dwight Howard, Antawn Jamison, and Carlos Boozer are the others.

Jefferson is a poor defender, though. In an improbable victory over the Suns earlier this year, Jefferson scored 39 points, but allowed Amare Stoudemire to score 33.... on 14-of-16 from the field. Dwight Howard will destroy Jefferson tonight, provided that his teammates do a good enough job of getting him the ball.

They also have free-agent-to-be Ryan Gomes, who can play either forward position and is a solid "glue guy," the kind of role-player I'd like to see us sign this summer. But he told Hoopsworld he wants to stay in Minnesota. What a shame.

I get a feeling like we'll get to see plenty of J.J. Redick, Carlos Arroyo, Pat Garrity, and James Augustine tonight. It's our last game against a Western team, so if there's ever a time to rest the starters, it's tonight.

Go Magic. Get that 50th win, and we can all celebrate with free Dunkin' Donuts Saturday morning.

Some site news for Thursday...

• Next Friday, just before the start of the playoffs, Third Quarter Collapse will migrate to the new and improved SB Nation 2.0 format. You can get a taste of what it'll look like by checking out any of SB Nation's baseball blogs. DRays Bay and Fishstripes cover the Rays and Marlins, respectively, and they look fantastic. Note that every post and every comment will move over, and the URL will stay the same.
• Hardwood Paroxysm is conducting a Reader's Choice poll for NBA blogs. 3QC is up for Rookie Blogger of the Year, Best Southeast Division Blog, and Best Eastern Conference Blog. You can vote by clicking here.
• Mike From Illinois, who's done the past three recaps for us, will also recap Sunday's game versus the Bulls. His site is Orlando Magic Blog.
• Florida Sports Report is a cool resource with links to news on each Florida sports team.

The Magic are back in action tomorrow night against Minnesota. If you can't wait until then to catch some NBA basketball, for the love of goodness, PLEASE watch the Warriors and Nuggets tonight (8 PM, TNT). The loser is basically out of the playoff hunt in the really freakin' competitive West.

The Dream Shake posted its predictions for how the rest of the Rockets' season would play out. I shamelessly ripped-off was inspired by that post, and now submit a Magic-oriented version of it, with a mathematic twist. The "Prediction" column shows how I think we'll do. The "Worst Case" column shows what we'll do if Murphy's Law rears its ugly head. The "Pythagorean Odds" column shows our chances of winning, based on point differential. I'll explain more after the table.

Date	Opponent	Prediction		Worst Case		Pyth. Odds
21 March	vs. Philadelphia	W	46-25	L	45-26	.721
22 March	@ Atlanta	W	47-25	W	46-26	.641
25 March	vs. San Antonio	W	48-25	L	46-27	.611
28 March	@ Milwaukee	L	48-26	L	46-28	.769
1 April	vs. New Orleans	L	48-27	L	46-29	.576
5 April	@ Cleveland	W	49-27	L	46-30	.572
6 April	@ New York	W	50-27	L	46-31	.770
9 April	vs. Chicago	W	51-27	W	47-31	.803
11 April	vs. Minnesota	W	52-27	W	48-31	.886
13 April	@ Chicago	W	53-27	L	48-32	.645
15 April	@ Atlanta	L	53-28	L	48-33	.641
16 April	vs. Washington	W	54-28	L	48-34	.750
		9-3		3-9		12-0 (!)

I'm not sure how much stock you put into this metric, but if its predictions hold true -- that is, if the team that's predicted to win actually does win -- the Magic will run the table the rest of the way and finish with a record of 57-25. Likely? No. Possible? Practically and mathematically speaking, absolutely.

There are some caveats here, obviously. For one thing, I did not calculate the splits for home and road teams; that is, I considered only a team's overall point differential, not its respective home and road differentials. For another, the Cavaliers actually have a sub-.500 Pythagorean win percentage, mostly because of the games LeBron James missed. As a result of that discrepancy, the formula exaggerates our chances of winning that game. Considering that it's already the most difficult one on the schedule, I was pretty hesitant to predict a victory. But I did.

In the interest of full disclosure, the last time I used this formula on this site, it predicted we would go 4-2 over a 6-game stretch. The predictions held true in 4 of the 6 games. Another time I used the formula in my notebook, and the predictions held true in again in 4 of the 6 games. So it's certainly not infallible.

As you can see from my predictions -- which are far less interesting than the Pythagorean ones -- I believe there are only three games we are guaranteed to win: Saturday against Atlanta, April 9th versus Chicago, and April 11th versus Minnesota. Every other game could go either way, even the road games at Milwaukee and at New York. In fact, I guarantee a loss at Milwaukee next Friday. We're going to come out soft and complacent after several days of rest, and one unheralded Buck, possibly Royal Ivey, will post a career-high. Write it down.

So, just to prompt some discussion: what are your predictions for the rest of the season? Do you think we'll sweep the remaining 12 games, as the formula suggests we might? What's the biggest "trap game" left on our schedule?