As promised, a few assorted bullets on stories not involving Carlos Arroyo:

• Hoops Addict is conducting its first annual Floor Burn Tournament, which seeks to credit the players who do the so-called "dirty work" for their teams without getting much acclaim. Round One is up now. I nominated Jameer Nelson, who must defeat Knicks forward David Lee to advance. Show your support for Jameer, who does not get enough credit for the little things he does.
• Dwight Howard did not fare well for Team USA in a tune-up game against Team Russia. Dime (via BDL) gives us the awful truth:

  On Dwight's first touch he threw up an ugly hook shot off an awkward post move that hit all glass, and in general seemed hesitant to beast his way to the basket despite being guarded by guys who looked like Keith Bogans standing next to him. He finished with five points and made just one field goal.

Dwight will have a chance to redeem himself tomorrow morning at 8 AM, as Team USA will take on Team Australia -- and its center, Andrew Bogut, selected first overall in 2005, a year after Dwight -- in its final exhibition match.

• For more Olympic coverage, I recommend these sites:
  • At the Hive, SB Nation's New Orleans Hornets blog;
  • Green Bandwagon, SB Nation's Boston Celtics blog;
  • 20 Second Timeout;
  • and Upside and Motor.

Great work, fellas.

• Last Friday, the Clippers withdrew their qualifying offer to Nick Fazekas, a hardworking power forward whom they signed after Dallas cut him to make room for Jason Kidd. Fazekas is now an unrestricted free agent. I'm not the only Magic fan who wants the team to consider signing him, as this thread on Denton's board shows. But fans of other teams are taking note, too, as Hoopinion wants the Hawks to take a look at him as well.

I've spent much of the evening working on tomorrow's post and updating some other site-related items, so I'll keep this recap brief: we won, 103-86; we kicked ass for the first three quarters of the game; the Bucks had no answer for Dwight Howard, who went for 25 points and 11 boards without breaking a sweat; and J.J. Redick made the most of his 3 garbage minutes with 6 points  on 3-of-3 shooting. Note that J.J.'s strong showing tonight comes just one game after shooting 0-of-5 in significant minutes against the Spurs on Tuesday. J.J. Redick's NBA career: Where making shots when it counts doesn't happen.

Notes:

• Keyon Dooling left the game in the second half after landing awkwardly on a defender's foot. He left the court under his own power, but appeared to injure his ankle. Hopefully, it's nothing serious.
• The victory is our 24th on the road this season -- behind only Boston and the L.A. Lakers  -- which sets a franchise record.
• By my count, the Bucks missed their first 14 shots of the fourth quarter, yet they still outscored us in the period, 23-16. Ouch.
• Only Royal Ivey and Ramon Sessions, the Bucks' infrequently-used, third-string backcourt, seemed to play with any fire for Milwaukee tonight. Sure, Mo Williams had 18 points and 5 assists, but he was just chucking the ball. It seemed as though most of his shots were ill-advised "heat checks" that just happened to go in.
• Magic coach Stan Van Gundy left Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu in the game deep into the fourth quarter, despite a comfortable 20-plus-point lead. Ordinarily, I'd have a problem with that, but not tonight. Rashard and Hedo shot poorly and I assume Stan left them in there to see if they could get in some sort of rhythm before having three days off.
• The Bucks hauled in a staggering 25 offensive rebounds, or 41 percent of their misses, despite playing without Andrew Bogut, their starting center. Incidentally, Bogut's imaginary friends might have been able to play better defense tonight than the Bucks did.
• Michael Ruffin, who started at center for Milwaukee tonight, is a career 40.7% field goal shooter. That's atrocious, especially for a guy who literally is never more than 3 feet from the basket on offense.
• Speaking of centers who can't shoot, Adonal Foyle took an eighteen-footer from the baseline tonight. It drew iron, which was a pleasant surprise.
• Dwight took a few jumpers tonight, and made one of them. Nice.

Weekend open thread tomorrow. Enjoy.

	vs.
24-46		46-27
Bradley Center
8:30 PM
Sun Sports HD
Probable starters:
Mo Williams	PG	Carlos Arroyo
Michael Redd	SG	Maurice Evans
B. Simmons	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
C. Villanueva	PF	Rashard Lewis
Andrew Bogut	C	Dwight Howard
Season series:
31 Oct 2007: Magic 102, Bucks 83
12 Dec 2007: Bucks 100, Magic 86

Shaquille O'Neal told the Orlando Sentinel yesterday that he'd like to be the Magic's GM once he retires from playing. Well, there's an opening in Milwaukee if he's interested. The Bucks' owner, Senator Herb Kohl, was so dissatisfied with his team's performance -- Milwaukee is the only team Miami's beaten twice this year -- that he didn't even wait until the summer to fire former GM Larry Harris. The other Larry in the Bucks' organization, coach Larry Krystowiak, may find himself unemployed soon. Milwaukee is 29th in defensive efficiency, "bested" only by the New York Knicks. And it's not like the Bucks are injury-riddled or anything; they're just wildly underachieving. That didn't stop them from killing us in December, though, when we shot a comically awful .338 from the field. That's a solid average... for a baseball player. Ugh. Anyway, we owe them one. Let's take it to 'em; we need to tune-up before facing the Hornets on Monday.

As both Brian Schmitz and John Denton noted yesterday, Hedo Turkoglu will play tonight despite his sprained right wrist. Jameer Nelson is out, however, with a concussion suffered when he collided with Dwight Howard's forearm in Tuesday's loss to San Antonio. I kinda wish Stan Van Gundy would make Hedo miss a game or two just as a precaution, but Turk's played in every game this year, which is something of which he is proud, telling Denton yesterday, "One of my goals is to finish 82 games. I’ve never finished it before and hopefully I can this season."

Tipoff's at 8:30 and in glorious HD, so you'll be able to see Michael Redd's prominent bald spot. For a Bucks-centric preview of tonight's game, check out the write-up at BrewHoop, which consistently puts other NBA blogs to shame. We wish we were that good.

Go Magic.

	vs.
8-12		16-6
Bradley Center
8:00 PM
Sun Sports HD
Probable starters:
Mo Williams	PG	Jameer Nelson
Michael Redd	SG	Keith Bogans
Desmond Mason	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Yi Jianlian	PF	Rashard Lewis
Andrew Bogut	C	Dwight Howard

• UPDATE: The Orlando Sentinel reports that Rashard Lewis is a game-time decision tonight with neck spasms. If he's unavailable, James Augustine will get his first career start. James Augustine!
  • UPDATE: Lewis is available and will start. Carlos Arroyo will not play due to a sore left foot.
• I'm still battling a nasty cold. Six hours of sleep after an 18-hour day? Ben Q. Rock's life: Where Exhaustion Happens.
• It'd be nice to get Rashard Lewis back on track tonight, wouldn't it?  His swag, which he debuted against Milwaukee on opening night to the tune of 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting, has since disappeared. More of this, please.
• It'll be interesting to see if Jameer Nelson is on a short leash tonight. He has not played well lately and might start losing minutes to Carlos Arroyo.
• The Magic: 4th in eFG%. The Bucks: 29th in eFG% defense. Start raining threes!
• Check out Brew Hoop's preview of tonight's game from the Bucks' perspective. They're worried about Hedo Turkoglu, and rightfully so. He torched the Bucks for 24 points on opening night and averaged 21 per game against them last year.

Jameer Nelson made signing a contract extension part of his pre-game routine last night.
Photo by Fernando Medina, NBAE/Getty Images

You know the drill.

• Tim Povtak and Brian Schmitz seem to have found the details of Jameer Nelson's contract extension: five years, $35 million, and the option for Jameer to opt-out after the fourth season. Sounds fair to all parties involved.
• I know we're only two nights into the young season, but Rashard Lewis is currently second in the league in PER. Manu FREAKING Ginobili is first.
• BrewHoop posted a second reaction the Magic's victory over the Bucks last night. Frank, one of the two BrewHoop writers, expects Andrew Bogut to bounce back from his poor performance against the Bobcats, and he describes Mo Williams' and Desmond Mason's attempts to drive the lane on Dwight Howard as "comical." Good stuff.
• Two former Magic players made their regular-season debuts with new teams last night. Darko Milicic started at center for the Grizzlies and posted 8 points and 7 rebounds in Memphis' loss to San Antonio.  Meanwhile, in Indy, Travis Diener scored 6 points, grabbed 2 rebounds, and dished 2 assists for the Pacers in their win over the Wizards.
• You know, Yi Jianlian isn't such a bad player. His defense needs PLENTY of work -- he fouled out because he couldn't guard anybody down low -- but he made the most of his touches on offense. Too bad the game's highlights didn't show Keyon Dooling schooling him, though. Keyon got the ball on the left wing, and Yi came out to challenge him. Keyon dribbled right, gave a half-spin, then went left, laid the ball into the basket, and got fouled. It was kind of like this movie he put on Jameer during his Miami days:
• Mike Bianchi is happy that the Magic played well, but he's pissed that so few people got to see it:

  What a scene. What a show.

  And what a shame you didn't get to see it.

  How's this for sad irony: Millions of people in China could actually sit in front of their televisions and watch the Magic open the NBA season Wednesday night, but shockingly and shamefully most fans in Central Florida could not. That's right, Shanghai got the Magic game, but Sanford didn't.

More news as it happens.

UPDATE:

• I'd like to thank my mother for pointing me in the direction of this Orlando Sentinel article, which states that Harris Rosen's bid to block construction of the Magic's new arena in downtown Orlando is faltering. Rosen needs 31,000 signatures to put the funding issue on the ballot, but has collected just 1,215 so far. I know where he can stick those, if you catch my meaning.
• If you were wondering, like I was, why Trevor Ariza hardly played last night, Brian Schmitz has the answer, and it may not make you happy:

  Maybe it's just because new Coach Stan Van Gundy wanted to win the first game, getting the Magic off on the right foot, and liked the way the game was going.

  When a reporter asked him if Ariza had fallen behind, Van Gundy bristled and said, "We were trying to get more shooting on the floor. It's tough. It's situational. We're not real settled into a rotation if I have to play 11 guys."
  [....]
  Van Gundy had intimated before the season he would play eight, maybe nine players at the most in games.

  Pat Garrity was getting more burn than Trevor Ariza. That seems wrong to me. Sure, Stan the Man wants more shooters on the floor, but shouldn't he have at least one slasher out there too? The spot-up shooters we have -- Garrity, Keith Bogans, J.J. Redick -- are fairly one-dimensional. Trevor can at least get to the basket and score off offensive rebounds. I hope last night wasn't a real indication of what Stan's rotation will be the rest of the season. If loving Trevor Ariza is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

	vs.
0-0		0-0
Amway Arena
7:00 PM
Probable starters:
Mo Williams	PG	Jameer Nelson
Michael Redd	SG	Keith Bogans
Desmond Mason	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Yi Jianlian	PF	Rashard Lewis
Andrew Bogut	C	Dwight Howard

25 words or fewer: The Magic and Bucks open their 2007/2008 campaigns and will get to see their offseason additions play in regular-season action.p

Know your enemy: According to the Bucks blog "Bango's Bunch," Milwaukee is starting Desmond Mason and Yi Jianlian over Bobby Simmons and Charlie Villanueva, respectively, because they fit in better with the running game that Bucks head coach (and former Magic player) Larry Krystkowiak will implement.

Useless information: This game features a matchup of two centers who were selected with the first overall pick in the NBA draft: Dwight Howard (in 2004) and Andrew Bogut (in 2005).

Bullet points:

• The SB Nation Milwaukee Bucks site, BrewHoop, is up-and-running just in time for tonight's game. Cool!
• Jameer Nelson got that contract extension he wanted yesterday. Now it's time for him to prove that he earned it.
• It'll be interesting to see how well Keith Bogans defends Michael Redd, the Bucks' sweet-shooting All-Star shooting guard. He's the Bucks' best offensive option, and they don't have any other big offensive threats to turn to if he's shut down.
• Another interesting matchup will be Rashard Lewis vs. Yi Jianlian. Yi, a rookie, is supposedly a good offensive player, but he didn't work out against actual human beings before the draft; instead, he showcased his offensive moves while being guarded by chairs. Lewis isn't a great defender, but he should be able to handle Yi if Yi plays out on the perimeter rather than close to the basket.
• I know I link to this site in every pregame thread, but I only do it because it's so important: NBA Audio League Pass is free this season, and you should take advantage of that. Tonight's Magic game will be televised on Fox Sports Net, which is unavailable to most Orlando residents. If you're dying to listen to the Magic's first game with Rashard Lewis, you'll want to use Audio League Pass. And you can see photos uploaded throughout the game on the Magic's photo wire.
• I really want Dwight Howard to dunk on somebody, preferably Yi, but Andrew Bogut would also be acceptable.
• This news was posted yesterday, but I somehow forgot to include it in any of my updates: negotiations between FSN and Bright House Networks were called off Tuesday evening without a resolution. As a result, Orlando Magic fans with Bright House service in Orlando will be unable to see the game. Brian Schmitz has a team source who says the Magic will be applying pressure to both sides so an agreement can be reached soon. I hope he's right.

This is an open thread, so feel free to discuss Bucks/Magic business in here before, during, and after the game.