Official Game Thread: Hawks at Magic

[lethalweapon3]

“Don’t stress out over your stats. I’m told HBO Max plans to cancel this whole season anyway.”

 

“It’s the right thing to do,” Wilford Brimley leveled with viewers during the Quaker Oats TV ads, pointing his spoon through the screen after stirring a pat of butter into his oatmeal from the stoop of his country cottage. No, hold on, that might have been Country Time Lemonade. Or, Bartles & Jaymes? “And a tasty way to do it.”

Our hobbled Atlanta Hawks arrive in Orlando after looking as soft and thin as farina, particularly in the second half of Monday’s mauling in Memphis. This is supposed to be the fortunate stretch of the schedule where the Hawks run into teams on the down-swing. But once more, they run headlong into an opponent, the Magic (7 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM, BS Florida), that’s beginning to feel their oats.

Similar to the Grizzlies, the Magic (8-20) are riding a season-high win streak, having beaten Toronto twice in three days at Amway Center. They looked even better in Sunday’s rematch, making Pascal Siakam and Fred Van Vleet look silly in a 112-99 home win. Like the Grizzlies, Jamahl Mosley’s club had two off-days to prepare for Atlanta’s arrival.

Orlando has had their share of injuries and outages. But they’ve had Paolo Banchero, Markelle Fultz, Cole Anthony, and Mo Bamba returning to the fold in recent weeks, and as a collective, they are getting the gist of what Mosley and the Magic staff urges as the right thing to do.

“They’re telling us to get to the paint and make decisions from there,” Franz Wagner, lately enjoying starts alongside elder brother Moritz, shared with the Orlando Sentinel. Franz’s late game-winning basket gave him a season-high 34 points in Friday’s first win over the Raps, while Mo’s season-high of 20 helped his team climb out of an early 21-6 hole to snip the Clippers in OT last Wednesday.

“That second and third action is when you get baskets at the rim most of the time,” said Franz. The Magic are also getting rewarded with tasty trips to the line due to their rim pressure (27.7 FTAs during 3-game win streak, 5^th in NBA; 86.7 FT%).

Detroit has fired the first big shot across the bow in the Tank Wars, shelving Cade Cunningham for the season with a shin injury. But Mosley has no designs on going down with this ship. His Magic are holding their tank artillery, for now, in hopes more seaworthy teams like the Hawks, who they’ll face once more in Atlanta on Monday, are kind enough to keep them afloat.

The Magic’s biggest challenges are staying out of foul trouble themselves (NBA-high 25.3 PFs/game during last 3 games), cutting down on turnovers while forcing some of their own (NBA-low 4.7 SPG during last 3 games), and not getting Jaren Jackson Juniored so frequently (7.0 shots rejected per game in past three games, behind only ATL’s 7.7). But these are lingering issues expected of a young team maturing through growing pains. Not those with the scant DNA of a recent conference finalist.

To be fair to Atlanta (14-14… First Place! Tom Brady ain’t got nothin’ on us!), they were down to just De’Andre Hunter among active starters. Clint Capela and sixth-man Bogi Bogdanovic are reactivated for tonight’s contest, while assist ace Trae Young (tight back) remains questionable. That should be enough for a more competitive outcome this evening. But defensive team rebounding (20 O-Rebs, 19 D-Rebs vs. MEM, to the Grizzlies’ 44 D-Rebs alone), motion, and possession control will be determinants for which side of the resulting score the Hawks will fall.

In the packed parity-laden conference standings, the most surefire way to wind up a Top-6’er club is to pile up as many road wins as possible. Only two teams in the NBA East, conference leaders Boston and Milwaukee, carry road records better than one game above .500, and the Hawks need to be in that number if they are to have any chance of avoiding the Play-Ins, or the Lottery.

Nate McMillan’s team (5-9 on the road) has dropped six of its past seven away games, the exception being a 125-108 win in this building on November 30. In that victory, Young and Dejounte Murray’s dual mid-range dominance was supplemented by strong rebounding performances by Capela, Onyeka Okongwu and Jarrett Culver, plus timely shot-making from Jerry West Award nominee AJ Griffin.

Atlanta finally catches a break, on paper, when they visit a banged-up Hornets team on the down-slide this Friday. When next week’s homestand concludes against the Magic (1-11 on the road), Bulls and Pistons, likely with John Collins returning at some point, Atlanta will have four days off, through Christmas Day, before paying Lloyd Pierce’s Pacers a visit.

All six of these games, including tonight’s, precede the home games versus KD’s Nets and LeBron’s Lakers to close out the calendar year, and then the four-game California excursion before retuning home to face Giannis and the Bucks. This half-dozen games in the slate are the honey that can sweeten the porridge, and Hawks fans won’t want their team returning home to find their bowls empty.

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[shakes]

1 minute ago, lethalweapon3 said:

“Don’t stress out over your stats. I’m told HBO Max plans to cancel this whole season anyway.”

 

“It’s the right thing to do,” Wilford Brimley leveled with viewers during the Quaker Oats TV ads, pointing his spoon through the screen after stirring a pat of butter into his oatmeal from the stoop of his country cottage. No, hold on, that might have been Country Time Lemonade. Or, Bartles & Jaymes? “And a tasty way to do it.”

 

I'll admit I never read the pre game write ups.  I just don't have time for that.  I'm too busy dissecting the box scores from @Spud2nique's daily NBA2K sim.    And I didn't read this one beyond the first paragraph, but just wanted to say that I chuckled quite a bit for different reasons.   For one, love the HBO Max reference, very timely.

Second, to this day one of my many mental "ques" is that whenever anyone says "its the right thing to do" I ALWAYS respond either out loud or in my head "even if its just a muffin" and always in a gruff voice similar to Brimley.    Every single time....since the mid 80s.    My wife even says it sometimes since she's heard me mutter it so many times since we met in 2007.  

[lethalweapon3]

The five Magicians out include Wendell Carter (strained plantar fascia), Jalen Suggs (sore ankle), Gary Harris (strained hammy), Chuma Okeke (sore knee), and Jonathan Isaac (ACL injury recovery, but practicing with G-League Lakeland! Timely...)  Orlando's recently returning players still offers Coach Mosley rational options at every position.

Jameelah Johnson spotted both John Collins (out, sprained ankle) and Trae (tight back) at shootaround this morning. As for the most important development for the team...

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

One more Magician went poof as of the 5:30 PM update, as guard R.J. Hampton is on assignment with the Lakeland Magic.

As for Trae...

~lw3

[kg01]

We see Bol make an impact tonight.  Will it be enough to win?  We shall see. 

[MaceCase]

Back to the misery business

[terrell]

[MaceCase]

Oy

[Guest]

Just tuned in to the game.  Down 20 to Orlando in the first quarter?
Geez ...

[GameTime]

[terrell]

Same old same old.

Trae Superstar Missing shots,  playing no defense and turning it over and we’re getting smoked early by a shitty team.

Fire Schlenk please.. He's demolished this franchise into eternal mediocrity.........................

And why did he give Dre that extension again?

Oh let me guess, we'll be ok when JC gets back... smh

Just build around Murray and AJ

Something has to change..

 

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by terrell

[MaceCase]

Team is rattled 

I want a 50 point quarter by the Magic for the lols

[terrell]

Nate has to go after this game.. Even though the next coach will have some of the same problems with this roster..

[Hawkmoor]

"I'm coming"!

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Hawkmoor

[terrell]

Someone come on here and defend this shit show Travis has put together please..................................

 

1 minute ago, Hawkmoor said:

"I'm coming"!

 

Our problem is deeper than the Coach imo...

The players dont fit and bad contracts to avg players will limit us for a while unless trades or made..

Shit is embarrassing..

Edited December 15, 2022 by terrell

[MaceCase]

There it is, a 50 burger.  Now, can Orlando go for history and repeat it for 3 more quarters? 

[gHost83]

Embarrassing. Clean house after this game. Hell at halftime!

[swanlee]

Yea its time to fire some coaches. This is pretty ridiculous we have completely fallwn apart in the last 3 weeks even before injuries

[terrell]

Other then Murray and AJ, I don't care what they do with the rest of the team or the coaching staff.

Edited December 15, 2022 by terrell

[Alf]

I am usually a glass half full type of person...

 

But that was f***ing pathetic on both ends of the floor. Absolutely no passion, energy, nothing.They should be embarrassed by that performance. Orlando took them behind the shed, beat the hell out of them, and then went to their families houses and beat the hell out of them too for good measure.