Celtics Face Tough Magic Team in Orlando

I am very nervous about this game. I have a feeling that THE STREAK will end tonight! D. Howard has been a beast … and will cause Perk & KG to be foul trouble. I hope I’m wrong …

This is an away game, so I would expect Doc to manage the mins appropriately…..not

Prediction: KG/PP/RA will be exhausted with 5mins to go and Orlando making a big push.

The pundits are always fighting the last war and always projecting the seaon based on last year. With the declining skills of Ben Wallace and the cloud of Kobe hanging over Chicago, LaBron’s supporting package having disintigrated, and Detroit being a year older and with Shaq being next to useless at his age and weight in Miami, I think it is safe to say the “experts” got the east all wrong. The teams Boston needs to beat to win the East are not Miami, Chicago and Clevland but Orlando, Toronto and maybe the Washington. Orlando is really good. I would not be surprised if tonight is a preview of the Eastern Conference Finals.

I don’t believe you can project an Eastern Conference Finals match-up this early. I truly feel Miami will be a force to be reckoned with the second half of the season. Shaq will get his act together and Wade is a first-team all-star type player. Chicago has started very poorly before and turned things around. Cleveland rode their defense to the East title last year and is capable of doing that again. Detroit may be a year older but so what? Their top players aren’t any older than the Celtics’ top three.

It’s all about coming together as a team and doing it night in and night out. That’s the way Cleveland played last year, especially from the halfway mark on through the playoffs. That’s when it happened for Toronto as well. It’s just too soon to tell right now.

“Control the tempo. Rondo will need to try to control the tempo of the game and not allow the Magic to run. Limiting turnovers could help in this area as well.”

Seeing as how the Celtics (91.4 – 15th) and Magic (93.5 – 11th) have played a similar tempo so far this season, this doesn’t make any sense.

green76m ppg isn’t a good measure of tempo, you should look at shot attempts. The magic have taken 79.7/game and the Cs have taken 74.5/game. Right now the Celtics have played the 2nd slowest pace in the NBA. (The nets just edge us out with 74.4/game) The warriors are the leagues fastest paced team putting up 87.9 shot attempts. But as you said, the magic are definitely in the lower half of the NBA, so I don’t think tempo will be a big problem.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/stats/byteam?&cat1=Total&cat2=team&conference=NBA&year=season_2007&sort=235

FrieCod, those aren’t point per game stats. They are what they say they are – offensive pace rating numbers.

source: http://www.knickerblogger.net/stats/2008/

And as you can see, FrieCod, the number of shot attempts alone are meangingless when it comes to determining offensive pace.

Your method is 100% faulty. The Nets are actually slightly slower than the Celts.

Where the heck did you get shots per game as a determining factor of pace? That is the silliest thing that I’ve ever heard.

Rondo will not get beat by Nelson. Nelson isn’t all that scary. Perk will get in foul trouble I think and maybe Big Baby and Pollard can lean on Howard and keep KG off him. Lewis will get his points but Howard or Turkoglu can beat us. Should be a good one

LET’S GO C’S 9-0 BABY!!!!

Well. as Nelson and Arroyo go, so go the Magic. Howard is not a skilled offensive player— just an athletic bruiser— and neither Hedo Turkoglu nor Rashard Lewis put the ball on the floor very well. They are spot up shooters who rely on the guards to get them good looks or easy baskets in transition.

Orlando’s problem is that Rashard Lewis can’t guard KG. He can’t even pretend to guard him.

WOW please we need to cut Tony he is just a mess missing layups at key moments, you just can’t do that in the NBA. Maybe in high school….