Before getting into today's (brief) preview, I'd like to share this bit of news with you: Hardwood Paroxysm has taken on the task of hosting the NBA Bloggers Awards, which will be voted on by blog readers in April. I'm proud to say that my fellow bloggers have nominated Third Quarter Collapse for Rookie Blog of the Year, along with Brew Hoop, The Dinosty, Yahoo! NBA Experts, and... Hardwood Paroxysm. Thanks to my fellow bloggers, for putting me on the ballot, and to you readers, for getting the word out. You can read the full awards ballot at this link. Thank you, once again, for your support.

And now, your regularly scheduled programming...

	vs.
22-12		15-17
Amway Arena
7:00 PM
FSN Florida
Probable starters:
Carlos Arroyo	PG	Rafer Alston
Keith Bogans	SG	Luther Head
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Shane Battier
Rashard Lewis	PF	Chuck Hayes
Dwight Howard	C	Yao Ming

The Magic handled the Rockets fairly well the last time they played, despite trailing by double-digits early on. The Rockets were playing with a hobbled Tracy McGrady, who shot just 1-of-10 before sitting out the rest of the game. No thanks to a strained tendon, he won't be in uniform tonight, much to the chagrin of the Magic fans who bought a ticket for tonight's game for the express purpose of booing him. Steve Francis, another Magic-player-turned-boo-bird-target, has dropped out of the Rockets' rotation due to sucking horribly bi-lateral quadricep tendinitis. Although we won't be able to vent our frustrations on goats from Magic seasons passed, at least we'll get to see a battle of the game's two best centers: Yao Ming and Dwight Howard.

For the record, grungedave from The Dream Shake, a new Rockets blog, has guaranteed a victory for his team tonight:

With Golden State and Boston out of the way, the Rockets should win their next four - with or without T-Mac. (Magic, Knicks, Wizards, Knicks)

19-17???

We'll see about that.

After the Nets' offensively-challenged trio of Malik Allen, Darrell Armstrong, and Jason Collins scored in double-figures against us the other night, I'm worried that one or two lightly-regarded Rockets will go nuts against us tonight. My money is on Luis Scola and Aaron Brooks, but given Houston coach Rick Adelman's inconsistent substitution patterns, there's no way to predict if they'll get enough playing time to do any damage.

On a personal note, it's a sad day in the Rock household, as we said goodbye to a dear friend. If that's all the personal information you care to know, that's fine. If you want to read just a bit more, there's another paragraph with additional information after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

The Orlando Magic: Where blowing leads to inferior competition happens.

Screw the usual photo/caption/intro/boxscore format, I'm going to get right down to it: We pissed this game away in the fourth quarter and it's probably our worst loss of the season. We let an offensively-challenged Nets team outscore us 30-18 in the final stanza. Not only that, we let three -- three! -- Nets scrubs have great offensive games off the bench: Darrell Armstrong did his Leandro Barbosa impression with 13 points (a season-high total) in 16 minutes, Malik Allen had 12 points in 19 minutes, and Jason Collins had 10 points (a season-high total) on 5-of-5 shooting.

I'm furious with almost everyone on the team, especially Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson. All of Collins' baskets came because Dwight simply forgot about him on defense. I understand that it's easy to leave a guy open when he averages just 1.1 points per game, but Dwight seemed to be more concerned with making highlight-reel blocked shots from the weak-side than with staying with his man to box him out. Additionally, as the Sun Sports commentators noted throughout their telecast, Howard spent much of the game joking with the Nets' Vince Carter. Where's the intensity? Where's the focus?

Here's Basketbawful on Jason Collins, the man Dwight was supposed to guard:

On Friday night, he went scoreless for the 18th time in 28 games. He also notched the exceptionally rare four trillion. That, it seems, was the end of Lawrence Frank's patience, because Collins never got off the bench on Sataurday [sic] night.

Yes, Jason Collins is a terrible basketball player. Dwight Howard is arguably the best center in the league today. But his defense tonight was atrocious. Additionally, he was a horrible 3-of-10 on the foul line. Just two more makes and the Magic would have won the game.  and he should really hear it from Stan Van Gundy in the locker room.

Nelson -- who came off the bench for the second straight game -- played harder than Howard did, frequently driving to the basket attempting to draw fouls. But he continued to do so even after it was clear he was not going to get the benefit of the whistle. He seemed frustrated by the poor officiating, and he too appeared to lose focus.

A note on the officiating: it was bad. Really bad. Just inconsistent on both ends; sometimes, ticky-tack reach-ins were called, yet other times defensive players were allowed to slap relentlessly at the offensive player without penalty. But as always, officiating should never be blamed for a loss. The Magic should never have let the Nets get close enough to let the officiating appear to decide the outcome. So as horrible as Jack Nies and company were tonight, most of our guys were just as bad, and are more complicit in our defeat.

Did Keyon Dooling have a cold or something? Keyon registered his second DNP-CD of the season on the night, despite the fact that we could have used his defense on Armstrong late in the game. Not only that, Maurice Evans, the man receiving the Magic's backup two-guard minutes, shot just 1-of-8. Mo played hard, but he just didn't have it tonight. Keyon needed to get some fourth-quarter minutes. I'd like to hear the story on why he wasn't used tonight.

I would like to commend three Magic players for their strong efforts tonight:

• Carlos Arroyo shut down Jason Kidd in the first half and continued to run the offense effectively, with 7 assists and no turnovers.
• Adonal Foyle had 10 points and 6 rebounds in relief of Howard, who was in early foul trouble.
• Hedo Turkoglu scored 10 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter. The fact that he lost the ball on the final play of the game doesn't discount his valiant effort in the fourth quarter.

This team should be absolutely ashamed of itself for the way it blew the game tonight, especially on its home floor in front of thousands of fans who paid good money to see it play. Maybe some Magic fans were at least happy that former fan-favorite Darrell Armstrong, who played in 502 games for the Magic over 9 seasons, played well. But overall, it was a piss-poor effort. We should have ran the Nets out of the damn gym; instead, they embarrassed us, we embarrassed ourselves, and the team cheated its hungry fans out of a free Dunkin' Donut tomorrow morning. UGH!

	vs.
4-4		7-2
IZOD Center
7:30 PM
FSN
Probable starters:
Jason Kidd	PG	Jameer Nelson
Antoine Wright	SG	Keith Bogans
Richard Jefferson	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Bostjan Nachbar	PF	Rashard Lewis
Jason Collins	C	Dwight Howard

25 words or fewer: The Magic take a perfect 5-0 road record to New Jersey to face the slumping Nets, losers of three straight games.

Know your enemy: The Nets are a completely average team. They're 4-4 overall, with a 3-3 home record and a 1-1 road record.

Useless information: The Nets' Vince Carter, fresh off a four-year, $60 million extension, is injured.

Bullet points:

• Dwight Howard, at least by this measure, is the best center in the NBA. Jason Collins is known for his defense (not for his offense - just one made field goal all year!), but he'll have his hands full while guarding Howard tonight.
• Our very own Rashard Quovon Lewis played solidly against the Nets last season, with averages of 23.5 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists in two games. More importantly, he shot the ball well: 50% overall and 54% on threes. Let's see if he can score 30 tonight; he hasn't done that yet all season.
• Beloved former Magic player Darrell Armstrong is Jason Kidd's backup. We miss you, Flash.
  • UPDATE: Flash is nursing a thigh injury, so the Nets have signed Eddie Gill from the NBA's D-League to replace him on the active roster.
• Speaking of Kidd, he's liable to put up a triple-double on us. He presents problems for every team, but especially us because we don't have anyone who can guard him. Jameer and Carlos are too small, and Keyon Dooling doesn't seem to have the same quickness that made him so effective last season. But, as we learned on Wednesday night, opposing players can drop triple-doubles on their home floor against us and still lose.
• You may not believe this, but Richard Jefferson is 5th in the league in scoring with a 26.1 points per game average. If he gets his offense going early, I'll expect to see Trevor Ariza come off the bench to guard him.
• Brian Hill is a Nets assistant coach.
• I'll be officially worried if Hedo Turkoglu has another bad game tonight. He has not played well lately and the last thing we need is for Turk to be in one of his shooting slumps.
• UPDATE #2: Al Iannazzone reports that Bostjan Nachbar, not Nenad Krstic, will start at power forward tonight for New Jersey. Nets coach Lawrence Frank made the switch for two reasons: Nachbar, a natural small forward, matches up well with Rashard Lewis; and Krstic has struggled this season.