Orlando Magic Continue Downward Spiral

The Orlando Magic (14-27) continued their downward spiral last night against the Detroit Pistons (16-25). The Magic were absolutely manhandled in the paint by Greg Monroe, Jason Maxiel, and rookie Andre Drummond. The Piston big men led the way by out-rebounding the Magic 54-41. The Magic were very much in the game until the third quarter when things got out of control. At the end of the second quarter, Will Bynum wrapped up Jameer Nelson because the Pistons had a foul to give and they wanted to make it more difficult for the Magic to score before the end of the half. The refs did not call it and the Pistons had a weird, easy fastbreak, as a result. Then Glen Davis chucked up a deep-3 with 4 seconds left as though he was trying to beat the buzzer. I don't think there was a moment after that point where the Magic looked in control of the game. Glen "Big Baby" Davis played so poorly that he was yanked and sat out most of the game. He continued to chuck up mid-range shots that were clanking out. He took a total of 16 shots in 23 minutes, only making 4 of them and contributing very little on the boards. The final straw came after a technical foul and Jacque Vaughn was finally fed up. Nikola Vucevic and Jameer Nelson had serviceable game, but nothing to write home about. Vuc was a rebound away from a double-double and Jameer was an assists shy of his own. Jameer's 2/10 from beyond the arc wasn't particularly helpful. The only real bright spot in this game was J.J. Redick, who was absolutely red-hot all game long. He had 26 points on 9/10 shooting, including 5/6 from beyond the arc. He had the Magic's first 4 points on nice cuts down the lane and hit most of his 3's on that little curl play he likes to run off the screen. Six Pistons players were able to score in double-digits (a trend that seems to be developing among the Magic's opponents). Both power-forwards, Jason Maxiel and Andre Drummond, had 11 points/11 rebounds and their utter dominance in the paint (along with Greg Monroe) was too much for the Orlando Magic to handle. Brandon Knight, Rodney Stuckey, and Will Bynum all played excellent games, as well. They managed to dictate the pace all game long and were able to score at will. If you want to believe there was anything good about this game then here it is: we are now officially tied for the 5th-worst team in the league. If we were to finish the season with the 5th worst record, we would definitely have a solid shot at getting a top 3 pick (Shabazz?). Stay tuned on Thursday night for another edition of the Crystal Ball predictions game, when the Magic square off against the Toronto Raptors. We had our best turnout ever last night...and had our lowest point total. Out of a possible 231 points that the 11 people playing could have tallied, we had 2. See you on Thursday, Redeem Team!