vs.
46-26		47-23
Amway Arena
7:00 PM
FSN Florida
Probable starters:
Jameer Nelson	PG	Tony Parker
Maurice Evans	SG	Michael Finley
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Bruce Bowen
Rashard Lewis	PF	Fabricio Oberto
Dwight Howard	C	Tim Duncan
21 Nov 2007: Spurs 128, Magic 110

The last time we played the Spurs, they pretty much killed us. How great were they? Well, we shot 56% from the field, hit 10 threes, and turned the ball over only 11 times... and we still lost by 18. The Spurs had just 3 turnovers, the Tim Duncan/Manu Ginobili/Tony Parker trio combined for 79 points on 30-of-56 shooting, and the team kept us off the offensive glass.

The biggest key for a victory tonight is containing Ginobili and Parker, which is easier said than done. Unless our point guards ate a metric ton of Wheaties this morning, they're not going to stop those two from getting into the lane, meaning Dwight Howard will need to protect the rim. He's about due, as he hasn't reached the three-block mark in a single game since March 15th vs. Indiana.

Interesting sideplot to watch: how Spurs backup center Kurt Thomas fares in black-and-silver. I was pissed when the Magic weren't able to acquire him from the SuperSonics at the trade deadline, but Seattle GM Sam Presti, who cut his teeth in the Spurs' organization, seemed determined to send Thomas to his pals in San Antonio. Recall the Spurs shipped Brent Barry and Francisco Elson to Seattle for Thomas. The SuperSonics cut Barry, who then waited the mandatory thirty-day period to re-sign with the Spurs. You'll have a hard time convincing me -- or any reasonable NBA observer -- that the Barry waiving wasn't pre-meditated. Whatever. Barry's return will not drastically alter the crazy Western Conference landscape. He's not that good anymore, but that didn't stop him from going nuts on us last time out. Ugh.

Tipoff's at 7 on FSN Florida, which sucks, because I know a lot of us are eager to see how we play against the defending World Champions. But it's not all bad: tonight's game is the last one televised on FSN for the rest of the season, meaning most Orlando residents won't have any trouble seeing the remaining 10 games of 07/08.

Check out Pounding the Rock for more on the Spurs.

Go Magic.

This following statement from Magic coach Stan Van Gundy about his team's point guards, cited by Tim Povtak in a brief piece in yesterday's Orlando Sentinel, is about as clear-cut as it gets. To use Bill Parcells' cooking analogy, Magic General Manager Otis Smith bought the groceries, but Stan doesn't like the dish they've yielded:

"I can't play all three of them. That doesn't work," Van Gundy said. "We just don't have any of those [point guards] who create a lot for other people. That's [Hedo Turkoglu's] job. We've changed our lineup looking for guys who can get us off to a good start. Maybe we need to look at that again¹."

To recap: the Magic have three point guards whom their coach can't play and who don't get the ball to the people who need it. Although Hedo has indeed done a great job facilitating the offense, the responsibility shouldn't rest on his shoulders alone. It appears as though Van Gundy has seen enough of each of the Magic's point guards and doesn't have a preference over which one plays. Maybe I'm reading too far into Stan's comments, but it sure sounds like he's sending a message to Otis: This team needs a point guard.

The fact is, point guard isn't our biggest area of need. Most Magic fans agree that neither Jameer Nelson nor Carlos Arroyo can lead the Magic to a championship in the future, despite the team's 5-year, $35 million investment in Nelson; he is, in effect, the highest-paid backup point guard in the league. Although he hasn't improved much this season, he's still a serviceable starter. In other words, he's not a total waste. Neither is Arroyo. The Magic have gotten 10.6 points and 5.4 assists per game from their starting point guards this season, which is modest, but certainly not embarrassing.

Magic fans seem to want the team to upgrade at shooting guard via trade, with the Los Angeles Clippers' Corey Maggette and Memphis' Mike Miller as the two most popular targets; incidentally, both those players spent their rookie seasons in Orlando, and both of them wore no. 50. The Magic could depend on either of those players to score 15-to-17 points a night. Each player adds his own unique specialty: Maggette is exceptional at drawing fouls and converting at the free throw line (.820 career); and Miller could stretch the defense with his sweet three-point shooting stroke (.401 career).

However, Knickerblogger.net shows us the Magic rank second in the league in eFG%, trailing only high-powered Phoenix. Without putting too fine a point on it, two-guards in the NBA are primarily suppose to shoot, and to do so well. Thing is, the Magic shoot well enough as it is. This season, Magic two-guards have collectively shot a remarkable .552 eFG%. So as nice as it would be to have Maggette or Miller back in Orlando, they don't provide what we need, which is rebounding.

The Magic are exceptional on the defensive glass, ranking 6th in the league in defensive rebound percentage. But they're lackluster on the offensive glass, checking in at 27th in the league in offensive rebound percentage, a fact made all the worse when one considers they have two of the league's top individual offensive rebounders: Adonal Foyle and Dwight Howard.

Since Foyle and Howard play center, we need to look for a quality rebounder at the power forward position. Rashard Lewis, a natural small forward, starts at that position now, and he's not having much success on the boards: among the 55 qualified power forwards, Lewis is 52nd in offensive rebound rate (3.8) and 54th in overall rebound rate (7.6). This fact is especially damning because Lewis is an athletic, 6'10" man in his physical prime. For some perspective, Jameer Nelson has an identical overall rebound rate, despite the fact he stands a full foot shorter than Lewis and he plays further away from the basket.

Apart from shooting, rebounding is the second-most important aspect of basketball, as Dean Oliver wrote in his book, Basketball on Paper. If the Magic hope to contend for an NBA title, they'd do well to acquire a strong, rebound-centric power forward, even if only for the rest of this season. Four of the last five NBA Finals winners had at least three players (minimum: 15 minutes per game) with rebound rates above 15.0². The current Magic team has only one player who fits that description: Dwight Howard. As Brian Schmitz explained in this blog post (to which I linked yesterday), adding a power forward to flank Howard in the frontcourt will allow Lewis to play small forward and Turkoglu to play shooting guard. This move would give the Magic a bevy of size at the two-through-five positions and what should be a decisive advantage on the glass.

We've concluded that rebounding, particularly offensive rebounding, is the Magic's biggest weakness. Furthermore, we've explained why addressing the rebounding issue is of critical importance for a team with championship aspirations. In a later entry, we'll look at potential ways to acquire solid, rebounding power forwards via trade.

Footnotes:

¹: From an earlier entry: the Magic are 12 games over .500 despite losing a majority of their first quarters. Conclusion: It's not who starts, but who finishes.
²: All data from www.basketball-reference.com

• 2007 San Antonio Spurs: Tim Duncan (18.7 R Rate), Fabricio Oberto (16.3), Francisco Elson (15.2)
• 2006 Miami Heat: Shaquille O'Neal (17.6), Alonzo Mourning (16.2), Udonis Haslem (15.0)
• 2005 San Antonio Spurs: Nazr Mohammed (20.8), Tim Duncan (19.4), Rasho Nesterovic (15.0)
• 2004 Detroit Pistons: Ben Wallace (19.1), Mehmet Okur (15.4)
• 2003 San Antonio Spurs: Tim Duncan (19.0), David Robinson (17.5), Malik Rose (15.2)