The Magic trail the Pistons, 43-42, at halftime, but I'm not worried at all. Strange as it may sound, this low-scoring, slow-paced game is exactly how I wanted us to play. Think about it: we're here to win a series and to earn some respect. How great would it be to steal Game One from the Pistons in the Palace by beating them at their own game?

Obviously, there's a high degree of difficulty here. The Pistons have taken away our biggest weapon, the three-point shot, by single-covering Dwight Howard. They're forcing us to play outside our comfort zone, and we've responded fairly well. If you told me "Ben, the Magic will shoot a mere 1-of-7 from three-point range in the first half and only trail by a point," I would have said, "You're crazy." So, I apologize.

If we can ever convert on a few open looks from downtown -- and that's a BIG if -- we can escape Game One with a victory. Join the discussion in the game thread, won't you?

• It seems like Hedo Turkglu has missed 15 layups. Still, we lead by 17 despite Turk shooting 2-for-9. Ladies and gentlemen, your Milwaukee Bucks!
• We're well on our way to a franchise-record 24th road victory.
• Some of the Bucks are wearing crimson headbands. Actually, they're fuschia; maybe the headband company couldn't accurately duplicate the reddish accent color on the Bucks' uniforms. Either way, it's an...uh... interesting look.
• I love Charlie Villanueva, but he's taken some horrible shots tonight. That line-drive hook right at the rim doesn't look too great, no.
• Also not great about V-Nuv: his temper. After not getting a call on the offensive end, he turned directly to referee Bennett Salvatore while the ball was still in play and stated, in no uncertain terms, that Salvatore had an Oedipal relationship with his mother. Bennett, not a fan of Greek drama, T'd up Charlie.
• Brian THE COOKIE MONSTER Cook has risen: 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting, and 2-of-4 from downtown. David Steele mentioned the Magic are 9-1 when COOKIE MONSTER hits two triples or more. This bodes well. Well, that and the 17-point lead, not necessarily in that order.
• The Bucks' three available centers combined to foul Dwight Howard 8 times. Jake Voskuhl had the gumption to confront Dwight after fouling him, which I respect. Voskuhl did what seven-foot scrubs are supposed to do when they're about to get dunked into posterdom: he fouled Dwight hard. I like that. You have 6 fouls: use them wisely.
• Mo Williams guns for stats about as conspicuously as any player I've ever seen. The box score says he has four assists, but I don't recall him passing the ball at all in the first half.
• J.J. Redick and Marcin Gortat figure to get fairly significant tick in the fourth quarter if the rotation players can hold this lead.

Neither team looks like it wants to play. The Magic and Raptors have combined to shoot 36-of-92 from the field, or 39%. Dwight Howard has scored just one point for us in 12 minutes, hampered by foul trouble. He does have 10 rebounds, though, so there's that. If he can keep his hands to himself, he should get plenty of touches in the second half, and shouldn't have too much trouble with Rasho Nesterovic and Primoz Brezec.

Rashard Lewis came to play tonight, that's for sure. He leads all scorers with 13 points; additionally, he recorded a beautiful steal on a crosscourt pass, which he took the other way for an easy dunk. Actually, that may have been the only dunk in the game so far...

No sign of J.J. Redick, as Keith Bogans indeed felt well enough to play. He saw just 3 minutes of playing time, but so far he's impressed more than Maurice Evans has; Mo is 1-of-6 from the field and 0-for-4 from downtown... in 17 minutes. Not very good.

This game has been pretty hard to watch, yes. Hopefully, the teams will pick up the intensity in the second half. I suspect that may happen, as this game parallels the 96-93 victory over Boston in late January: the Magic are matched-up, at home, in a nationally televised game, against an Eastern conference foe missing its best player. If that holds true, the Magic will pull away in the third period thanks to a three-point barrage from Brian Cook, only to watch the lead slip away in the fourth period.

Final note: We absolutely need to get a hand in Jose Calderon's face. By my unofficial count, he's hit his last four field-goal attempts.

The Magic lead the Pistons at halftime by a score of 52-45. Huh?!

• Orlando Magic points in the first quarter: 20
• Keith Bogans and Keyon Dooling points in the second quarter: 19

To quote the late Vince Lombardi, What the Hell is going on out there?!

In a word: effort. Despite a cold-shooting first quarter, the Magic have stuck with the Pistons and forced them to miss some tough shots. On the offensive end, the Magic are getting the looks they want (for the most part) and converting. The Pistons' bench is one of the best in the league (at least in terms of plus/minus, but tonight, they haven't done much, with a combbined 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting. Jason Maxiell continues to kill us, though. He has 6 boards in 6:33 of playing time, and we'll need to keep him off the glass if we hope to protect this lead. Detroit is bound to make a run in the second half, and we have to be ready.

I'm fairly pleased. Holding a 7-point halftime lead over the hottest team in the league, in its own building, is impressive. Even better is the fact that we've built this lead with Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu shooting poorly; each is 2-of-7 from the field and each has had two of his shots blocked.

Odd note from the first half: Keyon Dooling was called for a blocking foul as Tayshaun Prince barreled into him in transition, but the call was reversed, resulting in a Magic possession. I've never seen a foul-call overruled like that before. Nice that we were the beneficiary of that whistle. Too bad it resulted in a turnover.

Yes, you read that correctly: the Pistons have 68 points in the first half. That's a season-high for them. They also have 11 offensive rebounds in 19 opportunities, which is one of the reasons why they have 14 more field goal attempts than we do. It's the usual suspects who are killing us: Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, and Rasheed Wallace have 45 points on 22 shots.

The reason for their dominance? We are not playing any defense. It wasn't until the second quarter that we put a hand in anyone's face. Stan Van Gundy made a critical error in starting the game with Hedo Turkoglu guarding Wallace, who simply and repeatedly overpowered Turkoglu on the left-block and took fade-aways at will.

Carlos Arroyo and Dwight Howard are the only players giving a good effort right now. Arroyo is 5-of-7 for 10 points and has added 5 assists, and the two missed shots were layups. Howard is showing poise in the paint and scoring efficiently, but he isn't rebounding. He's also scored 4 of Detroit's points, inadvertently tipping-in one shot on a rebound attempt and goaltending another. Rashard Lewis is a non-factor, with just 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting, and 2 of his misses were blocked embarrassingly. Way to come up big, dude.  

It's just that kind of night. I'm actually surprised we're not losing by more, to be honest.

The numbers tell the story:

• 1: the number of Magic offensive rebounds
• 8: the number of Grizzlies offensive rebounds

Based on that, you'd think we'd be losing. But that is just not the case:

• 30: the number of points the Magic scored on three-pointers (10-of-17 shooting)
• .735: the Magic's eFG%

The Grizzlies made a bit of a run midway through the period, scoring 8 straight points after a timeout, but the Magic regrouped and have taken control. Hedo Turkoglu is puzzling Memphis defenders; they just can't guard him on the pick-and-roll. He has 18 points on just 9 shots.

I'd say we have this one in the bag, but we only lead by 10. Let's not forget we blew a game to the Bobcats last Wednesday with an even bigger halftime lead. It's not over until it's over... even against the Grizzlies.  

UPDATE: The 10 first-half treys set a franchise record.

A few notes from the first half of tonight's Orlando Magic/Chicago Bulls game...

• Brian Cook has only played for 7 minutes, but it's the best 7 minutes he's played since he's been here. He came in, drained a pair of three-pointers, took the ball to the basket a few times, and it resulted in 10 first-half point for the Cookie Monster. Unfortunately, he picked up three quick fouls, and was sent to the bench.
• Cook would have the Scrubway Scrub of the Game award wrapped-up were it not for Chicago's Chris Duhon. Since entering the starting lineup on December 28th, Duhon has shot a woeful 11-of-53 (.208) from the field. In the first half, he's 3-of-6 for 7 points, even managing to hit a pair of three-pointers. Oh, and he's totaled 5 assists. Why is it that scrubs like Duhon always find their range against us?
• Rashard Lewis' strong play on the road trip has carried over into tonight. He has 13 points on 6 shots, and has taken as many two-pointers as he has three-pointers. He also scored the last three points of the half to boost our lead to 5 points.
• We need to do a better job on the defensive boards. We've allowed the Bulls to grab 35% of their own misses, which is unacceptable. Joakim Noah managed to pull down 3 offensive boards in 6 minutes. Somebody box him out, please!
• Keyon Dooling hit a three-pointer, just his 11th of the season in 37 attempts. I'd like to see him hit that shot with more consistency. But what'd be even better is if he stopped shooting threes and focused on what he does best: taking the ball to the basket.

I feel pretty good about this game right now, even though the Bulls fought back from a 14-point deficit. If they were still being coached by Scott Skiles, they might have just thrown in the towel there. However, Jim Boylan has Chicago more motivated than it had been under Skiles, and that concerns me.

Second half is about to start. Let's see if we can put this team away, and keep it away, to get another win.

It's been a while since I've done a halftime update, but I have some stuff I didn't want to forget to mention later.

• It was Maurice Evans -- not Keith Bogans, Keyon Dooling, or J.J. Redick -- who started at the two tonight for us. He responded with 9 points and 4 rebounds in the first half, and provided great hustle.
• Jameer Nelson is back in the starting lineup.
• For what it's worth, Keyon has been huge off the bench with 10 points, tied with Rashard Lewis for the Magic lead.
• We absolutely dominated the first quarter, which we won, 35-20. We shot 71% and would have doubled-up the Clippers in scoring were it not for Corey Maggette's buzzer-beating trey.
• The Clippers proceeded to get serious in the second quarter. Tim Thomas (?!) was a one-man wrecking crew with 10 points and 4 assists in the period. By my count, he accounted for 18 of the Clippers' 34 points in that frame. Oh, and Corey Maggette has 16 first-half points on just 7 shot attempts. The NBA: Where Magic-killers happen.
• 11 players got burn in the first half. The one who didn't? Brian Cook, on his way to yet another DNP-CD. How's that Ariza trade working out for you, Otis?

Second half is about to start.

Ugh. I stayed up for this?

Tonight's game, which started at 12:30 AM here on the East Coat, has not been pretty so far.

Bullets:

• Pat Garrity has hit a number of open jump-shots, and he's really hustling on defense also. I don't know how much he'll play this season -- injuries to Rashard Lewis and Trevor Ariza have opened the door for him this preseason -- but he's making the most of the time he's getting.
• J.J. Redick appears to be rocking a fauxhawk. It's not such a great look on him. I feel like you should know this.
• Rick Kamla, tonight's play-by-play man, is trying to set a broadcasting record for most statistics mentioned per minute.
• There haven't been as many open shots tonight. Either Cleveland's defense has tightened up from Wednesday or our offense isn't being run very effectively.
• Cringe-worthy moment number one: Pat Garrity posts up Damon Jones on the left block, takes one dribble in, then spins out and fire a fadeaway; it barely grazes the front of the iron.
• Cringe-worthy moment number two: Adonal Foyle catches the ball seemingly wide-open underneath and has no idea what to do with it. As the defense collapses on him, he leaps and lays the ball directly into the rim.
• Dwight Howard is showing soft touch in the lane with his left hand, and he's done it over 7'3" Zydrunas Ilgauskas. This is encouraging to me. Dwight is primarily a dunker, so it's great to see him developing some more finesse around the hoop.
• Cleveland is murdering us on the boards, 23-15.
• Stop me if you've heard this one before: We'd be leading this game if we could hit our freaking free-throws. 12-of-20 is not going to get it done, guys.

The second half is about to get underway.