Posts Tagged → Vince Carter
A Rivalry to Be, or Not to Be: That Is the Question
Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images
There is no rivalry between the Orlando Magic and the Miami Heat.
There is no rich history between the two franchises.
Celtics vs. Lakers it is not. History? Boston and L.A. have decades of it. Geography? They are the East vs. West. Bad blood? Five words: Kevin McHale clotheslines Kurt Rambis. Great players? Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Jerry West are only the beginning.
And when it really comes down to it, a big reason why the Celtics and Lakers have an intense dislike for one another, is because the other was the only thing standing between them and a championship.
This isn’t Bulls vs. Pistons. For three years, Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all-time, was humbled by the collective power of head coach Chuck Daly and the “Bad Boys.” The “Jordan Rules” tested the Bulls to their very core. It took everything Jordan had — from extreme conditioning and toughness, the triangle offense, and his evolution as a teammate, to make it to the Finals.
This isn’t even Heat vs. Knicks. That was just violent.
Orlando and Miami, up to this point, have never competed against each other for even a conference championship. Whenever the Heat were an elite team, the Magic were merely good and vice-versa. They have played for state of Florida bragging rights, and little else. Sure, they had a somewhat memorable first round series in the 1997 NBA Playoffs, thanks in large part to Penny Hardaway’s Herculean efforts in Games 3 and 4 (back-to-back 40 point games) to make what was a one-sided matchup into a competitive battle.
That’s it, though.
For the Magic and Heat, countless players have come and gone. As such, not many star players have had a chance to leave an indelible mark on the head-to-head series. It’s true that Dwyane Wade and Dwight Howard have been the most consistent faces, in terms of in-their-prime superstar talent, between Orlando and Miami in recent years, but there’s never been a signature moment between them.
No, it’s not a rivalry.
Not yet.
Recap: Orlando Magic 112, Washington Wizards 83
Photo by Fernando Medina
Welcome to the Amway Center. Again.
In front of a nationally televised audience, the Orlando Magic christened their regular season home opener by defeating the Washington Wizards by the score of 112-83. For the Magic, they tied the largest margin of victory for a home opener in franchise history. And to be frank, this game was over when Orlando was up by as much as 18 points in the first quarter. The Magic were led by their four All-Stars, all with standout performances to varying degrees. Dwight Howard finished the game with 23 points, 10 rebounds, and three blocks, while Vince Carter had 18 points and five rebounds, Jameer Nelson had 16 points and six assists, and Rashard Lewis had 13 points and seven rebounds. Each of them played efficient basketball, and the chemistry between the quartet has never looked better. Highly touted rookie John Wall struggled at times in his NBA debut, finishing with 14 points on 6-of-19 shooting, nine assists, and three steals. Give credit to Wall for playing hard the entire time he was on the court, despite the lopsided score.
A lot of kudos should be given to Orlando for emphatically beating an inferior opponent. However, the Wizards made things too easy for the Magic by offering little resistance in terms of interior defense. According to Hoopdata, Orlando shot 18-of-21 at the rim and 10-for-15 inside 10 feet. Add to the fact that the Magic were able to get to the free-throw line a total of 32 times, and it’s easy to see why this game was barely competitive after the opening tip.
Those numbers are absurd.
Thursday’s Magic Word
- Zach McCann of the Orlando Sentinel: “So, Dwight Howard can hit mid-range jumpers now? That doesn’t concern the Washington Wizards. Coach Flip Saunders and center JaVale McGee both reiterated the same point: they’d rather have Howard shooting jumpers than scoring in the paint. [...] Saunders mentioned Karl Malone as a player who expanded his game from the low-post to out away from the basket. He believes Howard could become ‘nearly unstoppable’ when he progresses his offensive game to that point, but right now he’s not all that afraid of Howard’s jumpers.”
- Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “There won’t be any surprises in the Orlando Magic starting lineup for tonight’s season opener against the Washington Wizards. Coach Stan Van Gundy said moments ago that his starters will be Jameer Nelson at point guard, Vince Carter at shooting guard, Quentin Richardson at small forward, Rashard Lewis at power forward and Dwight Howard at center. Point guard Jason Williams will be on the team’s active roster tonight, Van Gundy said. Big man Malik Allen will be on the inactive list.”
- Head coach Flip Saunders is wary of the Washington Wizards receiving a “haymaker” early in tonight’s game against the Orlando Magic: “There’s going to be an unbelievable amount of energy in this building with the new building. Orlando, they’re playing extremely well. They’ve got something to prove, and they’ve been one of the top three teams in this league the last three years and not a lot of people are talking about them right now.”
- Win one for the Amway Center? Say what? Note J.J. Redick‘s response.
- Brian Schmitz talks about the artwork at the new arena.
- George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel conducts an excellent Q/A with Bob Vander Weide, CEO of the Magic. Here’s a snippet from Vander Weide: “I don’t hear our guys saying anything about respect because once they get on the court they get the respect. The only thing they might say is we’re a little sick hearing about Miami. But I think every team that plays us, knowing where we’ve been the last two years, is going to respect us on the floor. Does that mean that somebody on ESPN is going to call us out as the champions to be? Who cares?”
- Dress up head coach Stan Van Gundy!
- Evan Dunlap of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “The team was at its very best with Nelson running the show on offense, and wasn’t too bad with him on defense, either. As such, he owns the team’s second-best efficiency differential. Lewis is the team’s best option at either forward slot, which lends credence to Van Gundy’s idea that it’s best to move Lewis around based on matchups, which in turn gives the Magic comfort with different, versatile offensive approaches. I’m surprised we saw so litle of Carter at small forward, given how often he and Redick paired up on the wings in the postseason. And [Marcin] Gortat got hardly any time alongside Howard in a big lineup, though when together, they proved effective.”
Wednesday’s Magic Word
- Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “Did you know that tonight is, in effect, the start of the [Orlando] Magic‘s playoff push? Forget the calendar. Stan’s blueprint is designed so the Magic at times prepare for the postseason during the regular season, from developing young players to experimenting with certain schemes to seeing that aging Vince Carter reaches the title run in one piece. [Stan] Van Gundy concedes this strategy is essentially a first for him. And it’s not going to be easy. You might even see him lighting up in blue hues. Like a lot of coaches, he lives in the moment, game-to-game, trying to win that particular night. General managers are big-picture people; coaches are reviewing instant snapshots. The idea of preparing for May in January is as foreign to most coaches as Thai cuisine. Then again, most don’t have a contender like Van Gundy does. The Magic are close, with a Finals trip and two Eastern Conference Finals appearances the past two seasons. They are figuring out how to scale that hump. And Van Gundy realizes that The Postseason Plan might require getting away from tried-and-true formulas of the past that have assured wins on a given night.”
- Want to know how to stop John Wall? Ask Daniel Orton, or not.
- Zach McCann of the Orlando Sentinel: “The coaching staff has already begun preparing for the Heat game. Van Gundy said the coaching staff usually doesn’t work ahead, but with so many days off in a row, they’ve exhausted all of the preparation they can do for the Wizards. The players, meanwhile, have done no preparation for the Heat.”
- John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com: “When [Jameer] Nelson and Magic coach Stan Van Gundy met following the crushing Eastern Conference Finals loss to Boston last spring, they talked about where Nelson could improve his game the most. Van Gundy asked that he push himself to become a better defender. To do just that, Nelson went through hours of agility drills to better his side-to-side movement and footwork and he trained again with boxing drills to make his hands and reactions better. And Van Gundy said he’s seen positive results in the preseason. He hopes that it carries over to Thursday when Nelson will be matched up with Wall, Gilbert Arenas and Kirk Hinrich at times throughout the game.”
- A preview of Dwight Howard‘s season.
- Are the Magic tough enough? Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com tries to answer that question.
The Orlando Magic’s Journey Begins Tomorrow
Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images
Via Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel:
City officials and Orlando Magic employees have spent weeks making sure that Amway Center will be ready for its first NBA regular-season game this Thursday.
But even after countless dry runs and four preseason exhibitions, no one can definitively answer a fundamental question: Just how loud will the new arena be when the Magic play a game that counts? [...]
Magic President of Basketball Operations Otis Smith hopes that fans already have found reliable driving routes to the arena and explored the new building during the preseason. Smith wants fans to be in their seats just before tipoff of regular-season games.
Magic players expect no problems in the building, which holds 18,846 people for basketball.
The Magic sold-out their last 76 regular-season and postseason home games. The team also has sold more than 14,000 season tickets, a franchise record.
“Just being around town you can feel the energy,” forward Rashard Lewis said. “A lot of the fans stop you and tell you, ‘Good luck.’ They love the arena. The fans are just as excited as we are.
“I can see it in their eyes.”
If you’re a fan of the NBA, you probably witnessed the Boston Celtics’ victory against the Miami Heat last night. No, it wasn’t a pretty display of basketball and there will be many cynics that will ride the wave of “overrated” chants that were audible at the end of the evening and directed towards the Heat. But it’s one game. Even though the Celtics flexed their muscles in impressive fashion, there’s another elite team in the league that’s ready to do a little flexing of their own.
That team, of course, is the Orlando Magic.
Tomorrow, the Magic will face off against the Washington Wizards in their regular season home opener at the Amway Center. That much is known. And although the preseason showed a glimpse of how good Orlando can be, it’s not something that people haven’t seen before. The Magic have been there and done that. No, this season brings a lot of question marks.
Will Dwight Howard fully evolve into a dominating two-way player?
Can Jameer Nelson or Vince Carter be the go-to perimeter scorer on the team?
How involved will Rashard Lewis be in the offense this season?
There’s many more questions that can and will be asked as the year progresses but when it comes down to it, the spotlight for Orlando is going to be directed towards the four All-Stars on the roster. Yes, the spotlight will be much brighter on someone like Howard than, say, Lewis but their roles carry significance. Howard, Nelson, Carter, and Lewis will have to answer the call in different ways.
That’s how it was last year. That’s how it’ll be this year.
Will the end result be different?
Tomorrow, it’s the Magic’s turn to start finding those answers for themselves.
Monday’s Magic Word
- Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade all pooling their talents is unseemly or just unfair … unless they do it in your town, of course. [...] Remember the summer of 2000, when the [Orlando] Magic boldly toyed with signing their own Big Three — Tim Duncan, Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady? Wade really wasn’t going to leave the Heat. He was waiting for the cavalry. But a decade ago, the Magic wanted to start from scratch by signing the three biggest free agents in captivity. I don’t remember anyone in town thinking such an unprecedented, potential merger was bad for the game. Don’t recall a national media uproar over Duncan possibly joining Orlando and hitch-hiking his way to another title. It was a long shot to land all three, sure. The Magic had Hill (and T-Mac) in their pockets and pursued Duncan. They wanted at least two of them, with McGrady the third choice. Former Magic General Manager John Gabriel told me that ‘after Tim’s visit to Orlando, we got the sense he was considering us strongly. At that point, we were looking at maybe getting all three.’ There was one step needed to bring their talents to Orlando: Ask the three stars to take less money (a la the Heat). The plan never got that far.”
- Vince Carter‘s improved play on offense hasn’t been because of strategic changes.
- Mickael Pietrus‘ wrist is hurting, but he won’t sit out because of it.
- George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel: “The Orlando Magic have embraced their misery and pain. After all, doesn’t everyone consider them collateral damage this NBA season? They won’t be able to beat the Heat. They won’t be able to overcome Shaq and all those other tall tress in Boston. Thanks for playing, and please enjoy your consolation prizes this season. The Magic get it. And they are doing something about it.”
- Dwight Howard got baptized during the weekend. Good for him.
- Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “For most rookies, the month before the NBA regular season typically offers a fantastic learning opportunity. The youngsters pick up X’s and O’s, but most of all, they discover just how much they need to improve in order to compete with veteran players. Instead, Orlando Magic first-round draft pick Daniel Orton has learned patience. Sidelined by a weak left leg he injured back in high school, Orton has watched from the sidelines as his teammates have spent the last month scrimmaging, playing exhibition games and jelling with one another. Orton knows his rehabilitation program likely will pay off in the long run. Still, that hasn’t made the present much easier to endure.”
- The Magic hope that Howard can three-peat as the Defensive Player of the Year. Head coach Stan Van Gundy: “His focus is good, and if it stays there, there’s no reason [Howard can't win the award again]. It goes far beyond his blocked shots and even beyond his rebounding. He’s extremely smart. He makes all the right rotations. He’s a great pick-and-roll defender. There’s really not a whole lot he can’t do defensively. There’s no reason he shouldn’t.”
- Evan Dunlap — also known as Ben Q. Rock — of Orlando Pinstriped Post looks back at the pre-season for Orlando (click here for Volume 2): “Surprisingly, the Magic were 16.5 points per 100 possessions more effective with a traditional power forward in their lineup, mostly due to their work on defense in those alignments. [Rashard] Lewis, the incumbent starter at power forward, wound up taking most of his reps at small forward this preseason, but he proved effective playing both positions. Lineups with [Marcin] Gortat at power forward–which is to say, lineups in which Gortat played up front with Dwight Howard–were potent on both ends of the court. Oddly, in prior years, that jumbo pairing fared better on offense than on defense. Gortat must have made strides in learning power forward this summer and in training camp, however, for the numbers here to be so impressive.”
- Two ESPN writers (out of 30) predict that the Magic will win the Eastern Conference.
- John Schuhmann of NBA.com concludes that the pre-season does matter to a degree: “OK. So the Magic probably won’t break the ’95-96 Bulls’ record of 72 wins. But Orlando’s dominant preseason is a reminder that they were statistically the best team last season, outscoring their opponents by 9.3 points per 100 possessions (Cleveland ranked second at +7.3). The playoffs were — and are — a different story, but this team is primed to be a regular-season juggernaut again. With Dwyane Wade out for most of the preseason, the Heat may need some time to find their rhythm, while the Lakers and Celtics are more likely to deal with injuries and also pace themselves to stay fresh. The Magic will hit the ground running next week and have proven that they can sustain quality in a season.”
- Zach Lowe of Sports Illustrated thinks that Howard has a great chance to win the MVP award: “The voters will probably look away from both LeBron and Dwyane Wade, reasoning — perhaps unfairly — that the presence of another transcendent star undermines the MVP qualifications of each player. That leaves a handful of other leading candidates headed by Howard and Durant. Things will tip Howard’s way if the Magic win 60-plus games and he, once again, plays defense better than anyone.”
- Jameer Nelson is one of the biggest x-factors in the league this year.
- Manny Maduakolam of SLAM ONLINE previews Orlando’s season
- Ken Berger of CBSSports.com previews the year ahead for the NBA.
- “E” is for envy for the Magic, according to Chris Tomasson of NBA FanHouse: “Do the Orlando Magic envy what’s going on in South Florida? Maybe it will result in motivating Dwight Howard to unseat two-time defending MVP James to win the Maurice Podoloff Trophy.”
- Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference: It’s that time of year again. Time to plug a ton of projected numbers into a computer, simulate the NBA schedule thousands of times, and see what kind of predictions it spits out. This year I ran three sets of 2,500 simulated seasons — one based on statistical plus/minus (the raw version of which I posted here, but also adjusted for team using past franchise & coaching histories), one based on Win Shares (using the Simple Projection System method), and one based on a heavily regressed-to-the-mean version of last year’s Simple Ratings (not so much for prediction purposes, but as an experiment to see how well the “dumbest” possible projections fare vs. complex methods).”
- SCHOENE projects Orlando to capture the No. 2 seed in the East.
Mini-Playbook: The “Horns” Set
Photo by Fernando Medina
Tweaks and adjustments.
For the Orlando Magic, tweaks and adjustments have been made not only with the roster but also with strategy. This season, head coach Stan Van Gundy has made a commitment to make the Magic’s offense less predictable, and the results — even if it was pre-season — have been good.
There’s a lot of new wrinkles offensively for Orlando, but one of them has been the insertion of the “Horns” set. In short, two big men stand at both elbows on the court and set screens for the wing player with the basketball. The play design has lots of potential for success because of the diversity of options. Examples will be provided in a second.
The main attraction of the “Horns” set, however, is that it solves some of the spacing problems the Magic have when Rashard Lewis is at small forward and Brandon Bass is at power forward.
Because Bass is not a stretch four in the mold of Lewis or Ryan Anderson, it’s been difficult for Orlando’s offense to operate seamlessly as it usually does because he doesn’t have three-point range. As such, there were times last year when the Magic would get bogged down offensively because no plays were designed to take into account Bass’ skill-set, which centers around an efficient mid-range game.
That problem has been solved, somewhat.
Let’s take a look.
Friday’s Magic Word
- Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “This was an NBA walk-through that actually was a walk-through. The Orlando Magic did not do any running during their shootaround this morning at the St. Pete Times Forum because the court was too slippery. [...] The Magic are scheduled to face the Miami Heat here at 7:30 p.m. [Stan] Van Gundy said he would have kept his team at its hotel this morning and held a walk-through in a ballroom if he had known the court was so slippery. St. Pete Times Forum spokesman Bill Wickett said the court’s slickness was not caused by condensation from the ice underneath the wood. Instead, he said the basketball court had been stored for a long time and was cleaned after last night’s Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game. The spokesman said the court had not dried before the Magic arrived at the arena.”
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post: “Regardless of what’s motivating [Vince] Carter, one thing is clear: it’s working. To great effect. Yet Carter’s attitude adjustment isn’t the only factor that appears to have contributed to is success. Indeed, the Magic are deploying him differently than they did last season, using him less as a facilitator and more as a jump-shooter. More specifically, data from Synergy Sports Technology show that Carter’s pick-and-roll involvement has dropped from 48.7 percent of his overall plays in 2009/10 to 34.4 percent this preseason. As a result of playing off the ball, he’s able to take more in-rhythm shots off the catch (33.9 percent), and fewer contested ones off the bounce (21 percent). On the downside, his assist numbers have taken a dive, which his incredible efficiency mitigates.”
- Dwight Howard and Marvel Comics team up for a rare collaboration.
- Ball Don’t Lie previews the Orlando Magic. A must-read: “The only thing stopping Orlando is smart play down crucial stretches of playoff games, and this means the first quarter as much as it does the fourth. Because the fourth quarter is rarely crucial when you lose the first. Jameer Nelson needs to lead his team offensively, Rashard Lewis needs to get back to where he was during the 2009 playoffs, and coach Stan Van Gundy will have to get the most out of what is easily the deepest team in the NBA. Championship, or bust. No other way to put it.”
- Zach Lowe of The Point Forward looks at the good and bad of the pre-season for the Magic. There’s not a lot of the latter: “Everything. The Magic are undefeated and outscoring opponents by a ludicrous 25 points per game.”
- Rashard Lewis is one of the worst shot blockers in the NBA.
- An opposing scout provides his take on Orlando for Sports Illustrated: “I don’t see Orlando being on the same level as Boston or Miami in the East, and a lot of it has to do with having Vince Carter as their go-to scorer. He can do it on certain nights, but I don’t think they can depend on him consistently in the playoffs. When he is doing most of the scoring and shooting, it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the team and what they’re all about. Defensively, Carter doesn’t help them either. The problem is they brought in Carter to replace Hedo Turkoglu, who played a big role for them going to the Finals two seasons ago. They ran many sets with Turkoglu handling the ball in pick-and-roll situations as if he was a point guard. He could post up, he could play both forward positions, he could handle the ball and he was so versatile — not a great shooter but he made big shots and plays — and most of all he was a matchup problem for everybody. Carter doesn’t create those mismatches, and their other players don’t flourish around him the way they did around Turkoglu a couple of years ago.”
- Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated: “They appear to be third in line behind Miami and Boston, but Orlando will demand the respect of opponents by winning close to 60 games. No one thought much of the Magic two years ago either, and then they went to the Finals. They’ve kept their team intact, which gives them an advantage in teamwork over the Heat, and they’ve shown no interest whatsoever in ceding anything to Miami. The two Florida contenders will be on their way to developing the East’s best rivalry if they succeed in beating each other when they meet twice in the opening month.”
- Howard empathizes with LeBron James and the hateful tweets he’s received.
- ESPN previews the Magic, as well, and a lot of their criticisms are off-based (more on this later). Take it away, Chris Broussard: “Dwight Howard will be better and make a serious case for MVP, but the Magic as a whole are declining. They’ll still win lots of games, but with Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis just another year older, they’re heading in the wrong direction. Bottom line: they should’ve paid Hedo!”
- And lastly, NBA FanHouse previews the men in blue. Tom Ziller and Bethlehem Shoals provide a sound and accurate depiction of the forgotten contender in the Eastern Conference: “I’m fully convinced that having Patrick Ewing, the king of great but somehow disappointing centers, as an assistant coach has dragged Dwight Howard’s name unnecessarily through the mud. Like death and taxes, you can always count on a louse or two pointing out Howard’s flaws without acknowledging his amazing feats. Feats like winning three straight rebounding titles before turning 25. Like leading the league in blocks and rebounds two straight years. Like missing a whopping three games in six seasons. Howard doesn’t have Hakeem’s smooth or Duncan’s craft; he’s just a heap of muscles and a giant set of hands. So, like Ewing and even David Robinson, he’s discounted as a player not committed to getting better, to not being the man. Bull pucky. This is the best big man in the game today, an heir to Hakeem and Duncan in terms of impact on a game, any game. How quickly we forget that Howard’s team has beaten LeBron and the Celtics already.”
- Seriously. Read and re-read the previews of Orlando by Ball Don’t Lie and NBA FanHouse.
Magic Basketball Featured at the Basketball-Reference Blog
Photo by Fernando Medina
This year, I was asked by Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference to provide a very quick preview of the Orlando Magic for the BBR Blog. It should be unveiled in the next few days or so.
Here’s a snippet of what I wrote:
Coming off a disappointing series against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Orlando Magic are on a mission to right the wrongs from last season. Dwight Howard put it upon himself to work out with Hakeem Olajuwon during the summer in Houston for a week in hopes of improving his low-post game, and the early returns have been positive. Vince Carter worked out furiously in the off-season to become stronger and more conditioned for the long road ahead and as a result, shaved off almost four percent off his body fat. As such, Carter is looking spry and has an extra pep to his step.
Make sure to check out the other previews.
There’s a lot of excellent insight from the NBA blogosphere. Take a look.
