Don't worry, Stan: if the team I coached lost to the Hawks, I'd be displeased too.
Photo by Gregory Smith, the Associated Press

The Orlando Magic celebrated Easter early by laying an egg against the Atlanta Hawks last night. The four-point lead we held heading into the fourth quarter simply evaporated, and we ended up losing by eight. Joe Johnson had 34 points and 7 assists; Keith Bogans and Keyon Dooling tied for the Magic lead in assists with 4 apiece; and Dwight Howard shot 5-of-11 from the foul line¹. It appears as thought it was one of those nights where we just flat-out don't care, letting an inferior team walk all over us. Luckily, we haven't had one of those nights in a while, so I suppose I'm not too steamed about this loss. Then again, I didn't have to sit through it.

Anyway, I spent some time with the ms. last night, so I didn't follow the game at all. It's just as well. I'm not too about this loss; the fact that we see the Hawks once more in Atlanta leaves open the possibility of a us administering a butt-kicking. And because that game is on the second-to-last night of the season, we could end their playoff hopes, if they haven't yet played themselves out of postseason contention.

The Magic have today and tomorrow off before taking on the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday. Let's hope our guys don't get too hung up on this loss and instead focus on that matchup against the defending world champions.

¹ Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire, who's played out of his mind since the Suns acquired Shaquille O'Neal last month, scored 38 points tonight. He was 20-of-20 from the foul line. I weep for Dwight's potential.

	vs.
29-39		46-25
Philips Arena
7:00 PM
FSN Florida
Probable starters:
Mike Bibby	PG	Jameer Nelson
Joe Johnson	SG	Maurice Evans
Josh Smith	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Marvin Williams	PF	Rashard Lewis
Al Horford	C	Dwight Howard

Too exhausted to do a full preview. Check out the coverage at Orlando Magic Blog and Bold 'n' Blue. Fear Josh Smith and his 5x5 potential.

Go Magic.

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?