Tuesday’s Magic Word

• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “In their first 15 games this season, the Orlando Magic never folded, even in losses. There’s a first time for everything. The Magic unraveled Monday night, and the result was the worst single-game offensive performance in team history. They set franchise single-game lows for points scored and field-goal percentage as they absorbed a 87-56 beatdown by the Boston Celtics at TD Garden. [...] But why did it happen? Monday offered the Magic a golden opportunity to beat the Celtics. Ray Allen sat out with an ankle injury. Rajon Rondo did not play because of a wrist problem. Even Mickael Pietrus, Chris Wilcox and Keyon Dooling were hurt. And the rest of the Celtics had played the day before. The Magic not only failed to take advantage of the situation. They imploded. Avery Bradley, Boston’s second-year point guard, set the tone immediately by pressuring Nelson as Nelson brought the ball upcourt. Bradley fired up his teammates, and he also appeared to unnerve Nelson.”
• Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “I covered the Magic’s 84-57 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 4, 1996 in which Orlando tied an NBA all-time low for scoring. Yeah, you think, well, that’s rock-bottom. Never see anything as futile as that again from a Magic team. Sixteen years later, move over ‘96 Magic. You guys have the monkey — a monkey the size of King Kong — off your backs. [...] The ‘96 Magic were missing three starters — Penny Hardaway, Dennis Scott and Nick Anderson, all nursing injuries. The 2012 Magic were healthy, and every starter was on the floor against the Celtics.”
• Glen Davis is wondering if the Orlando Magic offer the best fit for him.
• A look at the numbers from the Magic’s 56-point outing against the Boston Celtics.
• Davis and Brandon Bass talk about being traded for each other.
• The regular season carries some importance for teams trying to win a championship.
• In case you missed it, here’s the Celtics’ tribute video to Davis last night.
• Andrew Lynch of Hardwood Paroxysm: “Holy Shammgod, do the Magic need a mulligan. Orlando got repeatedly punched in the face, figuratively, by an over-the-hill Celtics team that was without its starting backcourt yesterday, and the best thing they can do is move on and get the next game under their belt. This Indiana team, though, won’t be a pushover by any stretch of the imagination.”
• Ben Golliver of CBSSports.com: “Yes, the Magic were historically awful on Monday night but if we’ve learned one lesson over the last month, it’s that there will be the occasional super-ugly shooting night where great teams look terrible. This team has posted exceptional offensive efficiency numbers through the first month of the season; their body of work on that end is beyond reproach. They clocked the Lakers, dumped the Knicks and handled the Bobcats last week too. There’s no way there are nine teams in the NBA better than the Magic.”
• Seems like everyone has a trade idea involving Dwight Howard nowadays.
• Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk recaps Orlando’s dreadful game against Boston: “It was that kind of game for the Magic. On one kick-out to a wide-open Jameer Nelson in the third quarter he tried to go up and the ball just slipped out of his hands, and when he caught it when he landed he was whistled for traveling. The whole night just seemed to go like that. The play started to effect their effort, which got worse as things wore on. It happens, especially this season. Wash it off in the post game shower and move on.”
• Head coach Stan Van Gundy and Jeff Van Gundy will be featured on HBO Sports today.
• Franklyn Calle of SLAM ONLINE has more on the Van Gundy brothers being profiled: “Some of the highlights of the segment include the story of their first ever NBA game coaching against each other in November of 2003, when Jeff was at the helm with the Houston Rockets while Stan was the head coach in Miami. After Jeff’s team “crushed” the Heat, sending Miami to a 0-7 record, he went on to give his older brother, Stan, a philosophical pep talk–something along the lines of finding satisfaction in loses and taking pleasure in improvement–to which Stan warmly responded with an ‘F you.’ ”
• Another look back at the Magic’s loss against the Celtics.
• Howard is a darkhorse MVP candidate.
• Orlando is playing well despite last night’s clunker and Howard’s future in doubt.
• The Magic get an F for yesterday’s performance.
• Jason Richardson did something strange against the Celtics.
• Britt Robson of Sports Illustrated isn’t high on Orlando right now.

Eddy Rivera is the Editor-in-Chief of Magic Basketball. Follow him on Twitter.

Monday’s Magic Word

• John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com: “Before Sunday, it had been months, maybe even years since Glen “Big Baby’’ Davis took his gaudy 2008 NBA championship ring out of the safe. Heck, he even thought he had lost the oversized bauble at one time when he mistakenly left it in a safe that he had given away. But on Sunday, with his Orlando Magic rolling along at an impressive 11-4 and on the verge of him returning to Boston, Davis brought the ring with him to practice to serve as motivation and a reminder. [...] Davis returns to Boston on Monday for the first time since leaving the Celtics for the Magic back in November. Technically, the Magic acquired the 6-foot-9, 290-pound Davis and reserve shooting guard Von Wafer in a sign-and-trade deal for Brandon Bass, but he wanted to play for the Magic in order for a larger role on the team. The Magic sought Davis because of his toughness, emotional nature and willingness to do some of the dirty work that the team sorely needed. Those two wants – the Magic wanting Davis to do dirty work and Davis wanting more of a primary role – have clashed at times, but Orlando has been delighted by his play of late as the Magic have won six of the past seven games.”
• Dwight Howard has been named the Eastern Conference Player of the week for January 16-22.
• There was no shootaround for the Orlando Magic before tonight’s game with the Boston Celtics.
• A must-read interview by Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel with NBA commissioner David Stern.
• John Schuhmann of NBA.com: “There’s talk that the Magic might play out the season without trading Dwight Howard. They’re playing well, but do they have any chance of knocking off the Bulls or Heat to get to the conference finals? Health will be a factor, but they’re 1-4 against Chicago and 2-2 against Miami over the last two seasons.”
• Amin Vafa of Hardwood Paroxysm: “In recent years, this matchup would be touted as a defensive slugfest and an Eastern Conference Finals preview. Today? The most notable part of the matchup is comparing Glen Davis to Brandon Bass after they switched roles. Boston is injury-hobbled and slipping on defense. Orlando is drama-hobbled, and also slipping on defense. Let’s hope it’s a good game regardless.”
• Glen Davis might cry before playing against the Celtics.
• Marc Stein of ESPN.com: “It’s not just Ryan Anderson shooting lights out: Hedo’s doin’ it under the radar, too. And as noted in the Weekend Dime, Dwight has debunked any notion of trade uncertainty impacting his production, on course to be just the NBA’s second 20-and-15 man since Moses in 1982-83.”
• A new Howard trade rumor involving Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler.
• Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston: “So the book on Bass when he arrived was that he was an upgrade offensively, but was a step backwards on defense. That’s been somewhat true, though Bass has been both far better as both a rebounder and a man-on-man defender than we originally imagined. He’s still learning the team’s help defense philosophies and has been late on rotations, but his consistent offensive contributions afford him more patience on the defensive side (where his one-on-one numbers remain spectacular).”
• The Magic’s schedule gets a little bit tougher this week.
• Would Orlando be better off with Stoudemire and Chandler instead of Howard? Probably not.
• Zach Lowe of The Point Forward opines whether or not the Magic are slowly becoming a contender again in the league: “I wrote two weeks ago that we’d learn a lot about Orlando’s legitimacy when we saw whether its offense — its undoing last season — could hold up against better competition. So far, so good. With the exception of a stinker against the Spurs on the third night of a back-to-back-to-back, Orlando’s motion-heavy system functioned well in tough games over the last 10 days against Portland, New York and the Lakers — each among the league’s top 10 in points allowed per possession. The Magic’s offense has jumped from sixth in points per possession to second over the last two weeks, and their defense, an early season problem, is creeping back toward the overall top 10. If the Magic can keep up this kind of two-way play, they are a legitimate threat — if an underdog, still — to the Bulls and Heat in the Eastern Conference. We’ll learn even more in the five-games-in-seven-days stretch that starts Monday and includes two games apiece against Boston and Indiana.”
• Marcin Gortat, formerly a back-up center to Howard for Orlando, is having a career year with the Phoenix Suns. Jared Dubin of Hardwood Paroxysm pens an excellent article explaining the reasons that Gortat is fulfilling his potential.
• The Magic are bringing in a lot of traffic to their official website.
• Gilbert Arenas, currently a free agent, still hasn’t found a home yet in the NBA.
• Beckley Mason of HoopSpeak: “Anderson, just 23 and starting for the first time in his career, came to the Magic to be Rashard Lewis’s understudy and is making a name for himself reprising and expanding Lewis’s famous role—the stretch four marksmen. Van Gundy’s offense, like so many in the NBA, seeks to spread the floor around a rotating pick-and-roll attack designed to punish defenses for deploying extra defenders to address the primary pick-and-roll action. It fixes the defense on the torturer’s rack, pulling it apart until it eventually breaks and surrenders an open shot. [...] It is at this moment, when the defense rushes to the paint like so many white blood cells to the Howard’s infecting presence, that Ryan Anderson shines. Most teams can surround a pick-and-roll attack with a couple competent shooters, but few can boast a big man with the consistent deep stroke that has made Anderson an early season sensation. Even Glen Davis, for all his flaws, is a reliable catch-and-shoot threat from 18 feet. Every time Howard rolls with his hands high, defenses facing the Magic must triage the threat, and Anderson has responded by killing those that leave him untreated.”

Eddy Rivera is the Editor-in-Chief of Magic Basketball. Follow him on Twitter.

Friday’s Magic Word

• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “Jameer Nelson is struggling largely because of the constant talk that Dwight Howard would love to play with Deron Williams or Chris Paul. That’s the opinion of Orlando Magic General Manager Otis Smith. [...] Nelson has started this season poorly, averaging just 8.3 points per game on 39 percent shooting. It’s still early in the season, but both are career-lows for Nelson. Nelson made just two of his 16 shot attempts in Wednesday’s 85-83 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Nelson and Howard are the Magic’s co-captains. Howard has asked the Magic for a trade, and that trade request still stands. Howard has said publicly that he has been displeased that the team’s front office has not acted on more of his personnel suggestions. One of the three teams Howard has specified as his preferred trade destinations is the New Jersey Nets, who have Williams as their point guard. According to Smith, all the talk about Howard’s future has backed up on Nelson.
• Hedo Turkoglu will not play against the Los Angeles Lakers tonight. Jason Richardson might.
• Dwight Howard fires back at Shaquille O’Neal’s criticisms.
• Ryan Anderson will likely receive a contract extension soon.
• Could Steve Nash be a trade target for the Orlando Magic?
• More on the possibility that the Magic could make a go after Nash and other gems of information from Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “League sources say Orlando has not ruled out making a play for Steve Nash in the event the Suns decided to trade the point guard to a contender before the March 15 deadline. Nash, even at 37 and even on a rental basis, could push the Magic back to the NBA Finals at a time when the Celtics are faltering and the Heat are showing signs of wear and tear. As for what happens if the Magic get to March 15 and Howard still has not renounced his desire to be traded, along with the accompanying threat that he could leave outright as an unrestricted free agent? Magic officials have not made a decision of what course of action they’ll take at that point, but the options are clear: Trade Howard at the deadline for fear of getting nothing if he walks July 1, or call his bluff.”
• Even on a back-to-back, the Lakers are favored to win in tonight’s game.
• Jameer Nelson is fading into oblivion. Zach Lowe of The Point Forward explains why: “Nelson is shooting a career-worst 39 percent, including 25 percent from three-point range. A jump in turnovers has sunk his ability to create looks for teammates — already middling for starters at his position — to below-average levels.”
• The assertion that Andrew Bynum is better than Howard is a laughable one.
• Check me out at ESPN.com, ESPN Los Angeles, and Forum Blue & Gold, where I talk about all things concerning Orlando and Los Angeles both in the present and future tense.
• Kobe Bryant and Howard have been talking.
• Additional thoughts on the possibility that Nash is traded to the Magic.
• Bryant has let it be known to Howard that if they join forces, it’s still his team.
• Ben Golliver of CBSSports.com on the Howard-Bynum comparison: “Of course, there’s no contest. Howard, 26, averages more points, grabs more rebounds, dishes more assists, gets more steals, blocks more shots and shoots a better field goal percentage than Bynum. Howard has missed seven games in 7+ NBA seasons while Bynum has repeatedly been sidelined with injuries. Here’s a statistical side-by-side if you need convincing. Howard is a 5-time All-Star, 3-time Defensive Player of the Year, 4-time All-NBA first team. Bynum, 24, is having a career year and will make his first All-Star game, but his best individual achievement to this point was making the 2005 McDonald’s All-American game. He’s probably the league’s second-best big man, but he’s a distant second.”
• Shaun Powell of NBA.com: “Obviously, it’s really not up to the Lakers; Orlando must pull the trigger, although Bynum is about the best the Magic can expect in a trade at this point. But the Lakers would be foolish to keep Bynum over Howard. As good as Bynum looks right now, he’s not in Howard’s league defensively (who is?), and other teams don’t have to gameplan for Bynum as they do for Howard. Besides, Howard stays in terrific shape and mainly injury-free. Do you trust Bynum’s knees in the long run? Thought so, too. Bynum is only 24, but his body seems much older.”

Thursday’s Magic Word

• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “Stan Van Gundy plopped down into his chair for his postgame press conference and groaned. This loss hurt. If just one or two little things had gone differently, the Orlando Magic could have beaten the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night. Instead, the Magic lost 85-83 in overtime. Van Gundy blames himself for not making key adjustments quickly enough. Von Wafer missed a foul shot that would have tied the game late in the extra period. And although J.J. Redick swished a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the end of overtime, he released the ball just a fraction of a second after the final buzzer. [...] The defeat ended the Magic’s five-game winning streak, and it also ended a grueling stretch in which the team played three games in three days. Playing without injured starters Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu, the Magic used 10 players. But Nelson still wound up playing just over 38 minutes, and Van Gundy said afterward that was too much. But the Spurs (10-5) were playing their 10th game in 15 days, and they also were without injured guard Manu Ginobili. They also had not won on the road in five tries this season.
• J.J. Redick’s running diary of the Orlando Magic’s one and only back-to-back-to-back of the regular season. It’s a must-read, especially since it contains this tidbit from Redick from last night’s gut-wrenching loss to the San Antonio Spurs: “We were down in the final seconds when Stan drew up a high pick-and-roll play for Jameer Nelson, and he found Ryan for a pretty good look from 3-point range. The shot was off, but Dwight got the rebound – as he did most of the night. It was about 3.4, 3.5 seconds when Dwight turned and threw the ball at me. I shot-faked and it was 1.8. If I shot the ball right away, the defender was so high I wouldn’t have gotten off a good shot so I really had two options. One was to jump into him, which looking back, it was kind of at an angle so I would have had to lean in. Two-tenths of a second was basically what I needed. I could have rushed that escape dribble a little more. If I could do it again, that would probably be it.”
• After getting called for a foul trying to stop Richard Jefferson from connecting on an alley-oop play, Glen Davis pulled down his shorts and earned a technical foul.
• Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don’t Lie on Penny Hardaway’s recent interview with SLAM Magazine: “As a high schooler, writing online back during Penny’s time in Orlando, I made plenty of Hardaway jokes while suggesting (not unkindly) that Darrell Armstrong take over as Magic point guard — moving Hardaway over to the less-strenuous off-guard position in the starting lineup. And because he didn’t tear up his knee in a publicized, Bernard King-sort of way, I’m definitely amongst the “we” when I tell you that we didn’t give Penny the respect his injuries deserved. And to understand, years later, that he was one of the first that had to undergo microfracture surgery in order to sustain his career? We all should have been bonding with Penny at the time, so to speak.”
• Is Ryan Anderson in the same stratosphere as Dwight Howard when comparing their numbers? Well, let’s just say that the question isn’t as ridiculous as it might seem.
• Danny Nowell made an appearance on ESPN.com’s Daily Dime, where he provided his take on the Magic’s loss against the Spurs: “As the Magic stood poised to vault the Spurs on Superman’s shoulders, two thrilling, if disappointing, plays proved the difference. With 16 seconds left in overtime, surprise standout Von Wafer hit a driving layup while being fouled to give the Magic a chance to tie, only to miss the free throw. It seemed as if he might get off the hook when Howard gathered a Ryan Anderson miss and kicked it to the perimeter with time expiring, but J.J. Redick’s swish was half a second too late. It was that sort of night for the Magic — a gutty fight to the final seconds, but a fraction too little a second too late.”
• Another look back at Orlando’s loss against San Antonio in yesterday’s game.
• Despite a monster game from Howard, the Magic couldn’t eek out a win against the Spurs.
• Sebastian Pruiti of Grantland breaks down a key play from last night’s game between Orlando and San Antonio.
• Howard had the line of the week in the NBA with his 45-point, 23-rebound performance against the Golden State Warriors.
• A look at the possibility of Howard teaming up with Deron Williams in Dallas.
• Quentin Richardson can be a good defender even when he’s not playing. Confused?
• Also, make sure to check out Nowell’s insightful take on Carmelo Anthony at HoopSpeak.

Eddy Rivera is the Editor-in-Chief of Magic Basketball. Follow him on Twitter.