Vince Carters "Home Comming" Cut Short In 10 Point Win

Well it took Vince all but 5 seconds to score against his old team. With some oohs and ahhs and really no boos, tonight was nothing less then emotional. But the whole night wasn't all fun for Carter, after a very productive 1st half, Carter went down late in the second after rolling his ankle on former teammate Devin Harris's foot . Vince's night ended with (as of now) a sprain, but not without scoring 16 points. With Carter gone Courtney Lee took advantage and won the battle between the traded players (at least on paper) and led all Nets in scoring with 18. The Nets did keep it close threw out most of the game. This could be due to a few things, things like the lack of productivity from PG Jameer Nelson, and just as much from Jason Williams(who played more minutes). Both Shot about 33% from the field and neither played 30 minutes. Or the closeness could be due to The Magic shooting an anemic 28% from behind the arc. Something the best team from last year cant afford to do when they face tougher teams like Boston and Cleveland.

Now after reading that you would think we would have been blown out, but then how did we win by 10? A combination of defence, cold shooting by NJ and role players like Brandon Bass and JJ Redick who took over for Vince in the 2nd half . The Nets shot 38% in the game and looked like a team waiting for the 2010 free agency class to save them. But a lot of blame could be due to Dwight Howard having a, well, a Dwight Howard game with 20pts and a game high 22rebs and 4blks and kept Brook Lopez, who came off a very impressive opening game, relatively quiet with 11pts in only 25 minutes due to foul trouble, getting #5 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd.

But if i had to describe this game in one word, it would be ugly. So coming out with a win makes all the difference, and as they say winning masks the sink but dose not clean it. So Stan has a lot of work to do because this isn't looking like the Eastern Conference Champs from a year ago. Now some of you might think im being a bit hard on them but understand in two games the magic has't really been "Punched in the face" and when that game comes i dont feel that the magic teams that has shown up the first two games can handle it. This isn't the 2004 team. This is a team now with expectations, HIGH ones. So with a day off till Sundays game vs Toronto, we will see the adjustments and if Vince can get healthy to face his OTHER old team.


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PS~ I would like to thank all who have had feed back on my first blog. Friends, Family, and great feed back on twitter was more then expected. Im very new to blogging and i very much appreciated the comments i received. I know im being tough on the magic, but also as a Detroit Lions blogger, i would ~MUCH~ rather find weak spots on a great team, then find positive things to say about a poor team. Thank You All Very Much And Im Looking Forward To A Long And Exicting Magic Season :)

Orlando Wins In "Dress Rehearsal" Season Opener

But the real question is who did they impress? If you only looked at the final score then you would trick yourself into thinking Orlando dominated and coasted to a easy 120 - 106 win over the Sixers. But if you watched the game then you, like me, were a little disappointed with the lack of effort in the second half. Almost like Stan pulled the chain back on his "dogs". Even more stunning was watching the magic come out in the 4th with a "Lets Get This Over With" approach and watched Philly out score them by 17 points in the final quarter. Something Stan looked quit upset with (and I'm sure will let his team know in practice tomorrow)

Having said all that, I'm going to give a free pass to the team this time considering Stan didn't have a single player play over 30 minutes (Pietrus had exactly 30) and he did have 5 new players to fit into his system. Showing the entire NBA that Orlando IS the deepest team in the Association and loosing their All-Star and highest paid player Rashard Lewis for 10 games will not slow them down TOO bad.

Looking at the players, I have to say Vince looked like...well...Old Vince, not "Old Man" but the "Old" 6 Time All-Star, Toronto Raptor Vince Carter. Even Though He Played Limited Minutes(26 to be exact), he made everyone of them count with 15 points 3-5 from downtown and 2-2 from the line. Best of all he looked "happy" something we didn't see much of last year in NJ. Also if you missed the game you missed an amazing comeback of Jason Williams, who had not played a real NBA game in almost 2 year, off the bench scored 15 points and dished 5 assists in 23 minutes and looked great showing the less then a million he will be paid could be a huge steal. Jason will battle with Anthoney Johnson for backup PG duty for All-Star PG Jameer Nelson. (who had a quiet game with 7 points in 21 minutes) But the player of the game was none other then All-World Center Dwight Howard. Superman wasted little time throwing his hat in the ring for the long list of awards he can win this year. In only 29 minutes he scored 21 points (on 9-11 shooting) 15 rebounds and blocked 2 shots

Overall it was a nice win. which got ugly from the start and if Orlando wanted, could have been worse. Defence will need to step it up if they want to get better then they were last year but with so much talent on that team. The Biggest challenge could be staying focused (Something they had trouble with on game 1) With almost every eastern playoff team getting better on paper it looks like the paper is looking very promising for this Orlando team


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