Ira Winderman, who covers the Miami Heat for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is one of the non-Magic beat reporters whose work I read daily. I have the utmost respect for him, as does anyone else who follows the NBA media scene.

Hopefully, the Magic players and coaching staff follow Winderman also, because he's just given the team plenty of motivation. Here are some bullets from the blog entry he made after Friday night's Magic victory over the Heat:

• Oh, and the Magic is not very good [....]
• The Magic remains little more than an all-or-nothing jump-shooting team.
• One round and out for Stan Van Gundy's team? Entirely possible [....]
• And don't want to hear about how the Heat missed with Jameer Nelson when it instead drafted Dorell Wright. Nelson isn't taking the Magic anywhere.

Ouch, Ira. We'll see how these predictions hold up in the playoffs. Too bad the Heat won't be there with us.

	vs.
11-52		42-24
AmericanAirlines Arena
7:30 PM
FSN Florida
Probable starters:
Jason Williams	PG	Jameer Nelson
Daequan Cook	SG	Maurice Evans
Ricky Davis	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Shawn Marion	PF	Rashard Lewis
Mark Blount	C	Dwight Howard
Season series:
24 Nov 2007: Magic 120, Heat 99
28 Dec 2007: Magic 121, Heat 114
30 Jan 2008: Magic 107, Heat 91

The Magic take to the road for the first time in over a week to take on their rivals to the south, the Miami Heat. They'll return to Orlando to play the Indiana Pacers on the second night of a back-to-back, and won't have to play another road game for a week. I'm really digging this late-season schedule, and I'm sure the players are too.

The Heat are miserably bad. As Basketbawful noted yesterday, in Miami's loss to the New York Knicks on Wednesday night, Ricky Davis and Mark Blount took a combine 35 shots. Yeah, it's gotten real bad in South Beach. So bad, in fact, that coach Pat Riley has left the team to scout some college players. Not that Riley is any stranger to quitting taking time off or anything.

Oh, by the way: the Heat have lost Alonzo Mourning (knee), Shaquille O'Neal (trade), and Dwyane Wade (knee) for the season. Udonis Haslem, their glue-guy, has also missed some games with a bum ankle. At least they managed to snag Shawn Marion in the O'Neal trade.

Tipoff's at 7:30 because the Heat are about five years behind us in terms of scheduling. The game's on FSN, so most of us won't be able to see it, but that may be a good thing. Do we really want to subject ourselves to the Mark Blount? What about Heat's insufferable P.A. announcer? Seth from Posting and Toasting, SB Nation's Knicks blog, explains:

• Someone needs to make a video of every time Mark Blount touched the ball in the second half. It was surreal. I'd guess he had 15 touches in the final 24 minutes, and that he hastily bricked an off-balance jump shot on about 10 of those touches. It was so egregious that Mike Breen's call at one point was "Mark Blount with...a pass!". My fantasy team thanks you, asshole.
• As Barnesgasm pointed out, the Miami PA announcer must have accidentally ingested some speed in his pre-game snack. The guy was practically screaming such unimpressive names as "DAEQUAN COOOOOOK!!!" and "CHRIS QUIIIIINN!!1", which was made even more depressing by the noticeable echo in the completely empty arena.

So, yeah, enjoy. Go Magic.