NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

This will be more about opinion and less about facts, sorry about that. Hedo Turkoglu has opted out of Orlando and will be a free agent. Orlando decided to sign Vince Carter from New Jersey.

Hedo Turkoglu is looking for a big payday

Wait, those are facts. Now comes the opinion, and feel free to chime in and disagree.

Orlando will be worse off with Vince Carter. While Carter can put up numbers, he does not play winning basketball and he cannot check anyone. Ok, he held my grandma to less than 10 points once, but that was when she was hurt and using a walker.

Turkoglu was a more stable player and understood that Dwight Howard was what made Orlando great. There is a reason that New Jersey could not win when Carter, Jefferson, and Kidd played there at the same time.

The Magic believe Carter is an upgrade over Turkoglu as a one-on-one player who can create his own shot, any time, any where, especially at the end of games.

They traded starting shooting guard Courtney Lee, point guard Rafer Alston and power forward Tony Battie to the New Jersey Nets for Carter and power forward Ryan Anderson, a rookie like Lee.

The Magic will have a distinctively different look next season, changing starters at shooting guard and (probably) small forward.
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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

The NBA Title series ain’t what it used to be, by 10% to be exact. Ratings were down 10 percent according to an AP article in ESPN.

At first blush that seems kind of bad for a series featuring Phil Jackson going for his 10th coaching title and Kobe Bryant trying to prove he can be a one man band, but it has to be kept in the context of being compared to last year’s dream matchup of the Celtics and Lakers.

Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol did not have people turning on their TV's

Boston brought in Kevin Garnett and had a title starved large market in Boston. The Boston area has won in all other sports and they were ready for an NBA title. The Orlando market is a smaller area and Dwight Howard is less of a draw than the 3 amigos. That may change as Dwight improves, but it is fact for now.
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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Pau Gasol is getting banged around by Dwight Howard, but what did he expect? Dwight has only one style of play and it involves a lot of muscle applied in a not so gentle manner.

Pau rubbed the back of his head to the referee for a visual explanation.

Then again, Pau is not the most physical center in the league and Dwight is going to have to be physical to compete with Gasol. If Dwight Howard lightened up for even a moment, the crafty Pau would destroy him on the offensive end.

Dwight Howard fights off the Lakers

Howard even seemed to acknowledge Gasol’s complaints, though he had not been told of them before his postgame news conference.

“I think with (Andrew) Bynum, he doesn’t mind banging,” Howard said. “With Gasol, sometimes you’ve got to be aware of what you do in the paint. Gasol is very smart. He’s been playing for a long, long time and I think with him, I’ve just got to be smart. I don’t want to pick up any cheap fouls and have to sit on the bench.”

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Hey, Dwight knows what he is doing.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Orlando fans need to relax and enjoy, because they can win game 3. Usually the way these series go, the home team of the favored team (that would be the Lakers) will win big at home and be lucky to scrape a 1 point victory on the road.

Consider that Orlando had the ball and a chance to win at the end of game two and it bodes well for the Magic to win game 3. Especially look for Dwight Howard to have a big game on the home court.

Dwight Howard needs to reach out and take this game

On the other hand, Magic fans better put away the knives if the Lakers pull out game 3, because then all that is left to play for is respect. That does not win many titles.
In the mean time, please don’t blame Stan Van Gundy. He is doing everything he can.

Coach Stan Van Gundy pulled out everything imaginable from his bag of tricks on Sunday, and somehow the Magic almost turned the Finals on its ear before losing in overtime.

Van Gundy is desperate enough now in a series of must-win games that he might resort to the ol’ “Picket Fence” from the movie Hoosiers, the Ted Williams shift or the Veer. Well, he could always use the World’s Tallest Line-up, where every player is at least 6-feet-10.

“I’m not sure I’ve got another lineup to throw out there that you haven’t seen now, OK, unless I’m going to play like Dwight [Howard], Marcin [Gortat], Tony [Battie], Rashard [Lewis] and Hedo [Turkoglu]. I don’t have another one now,” Van Gundy said.

“We played with no point guard. We’ve played big. We played conventionally [with point guards]. We’ve had Rashard at the three [small forward], we played Hedo at the one [point guard], two [shooting guard] and three.
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The Magic had an opportunity to win game two of the series against the Lakers when Courtney Lee took an alley oop pass and attempted to bank it off of the backboard and into the hoop with the scored tied. The replay shows Pau Gasol getting his hand caught in the rim as the ball is hitting the backboard.

Is that goaltending? If so, the Orlando Magic should be headed home tied 1-1, not down 0-2 heading into Tuesday night’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals. source

This is just too freaky, because they just aired the 72 Munich Germany USA basketball loss to Russia, where Russia gets 3 tries and 2 additional seconds to hand the USA their first ever Olympic loss. Doug Collins had seemingly gave the Americans the lead with 1 second left on the clock and that is when the shenanigans began.

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

There was David Stern giving his annual pre finals state of the NBA address. This year it was quite interesting, as it was announced that the Charlotte Bobcats would most likely be up for sale. That in itself would be news, but you really have to realize how tough it is to make a buck in the NBA.

News has leaked in recent weeks that Bobcats majority owner Bob Johnson, who founded the team in 2004, was losing over $10 million annually from his original $300 million investment and wanted out before he was even more in the red.

Charlotte is currently valued at $284 million by Forbes. Once boasting one of the league’s more robust attendance averages at the old Charlotte Coliseum, it currently ranks 29th among the NBA’s 30 franchises in net worth.

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Now stop right there and give it some thought. The Charlotte Bobcats have never been very good and do not have a marquee player to exhibit to the NBA marketing gurus. Tough to sell a team that is considered a joke.

The Magic must make money with Dwight Howard, right?

Now how about a magical team like the Orlando Magic. They must be making tons of bucks, right? This is where you might be surprised. This is where you realize just how bad the economy really is.

While the Magic are ranked 17th by Forbes with a valuation of $349 million, the franchise was expecting in May to lose $15 million to $20 million this season.

Martins said at the time that the amount the team lost this season would depend upon its playoff run. Reaching the Finals will definitely lessen the blow, but the Magic certainly have even more riding on the opening of their new arena in 2010.

The Magic have received some good news in regards to that opening, though. Sports Business Journal reported last month that a $100 million loan the Magic were seeking to help them finance their contribution to the arena was close to going through.

The approval of the loan will make the team the first mid-tier professional franchise to secure financing that big since the slowing down of the credit markets at the end of last year.

Stern has even promised them the All Star game to help them out. Now if the Magic are struggling, how can the Bobcats expect to turn a profit?

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Have you figured this out yet? Dwight Howard will stay in Orlando because he is under contract for the next 4 years to the Magic. Still Dwight Howard is saying all the right things and why not, with the NBA Finals coming up and the whole world taking a look at Dwight Howard the basketball player instead of Dwight Howard the dunker.

Dwight is loving the fans.

“I tell my friends this: I want to stay here. It will be based upon the city. We want the support of our fans. That’s what carries us, that’s what inspires us, that’s what keeps us motivated.

“You want to feel loved. That’s the biggest thing. I show my love to the community. I show my love to this city by stepping on the floor every night and playing as hard as I can. That’s all we want back.”
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Dwight Howard the player

So just when we are feeling secure, out of Dwight Howard’s mouth comes this…

While he expresses his commitment to Orlando, Howard says he understands Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James — who can become a free agent in 2010 — weighing his options.

“You just don’t want to say something. You want to wait and weigh your options,” Howard said. “Everybody can say that LeBron should stay in Cleveland. That’s where he’s from. But you have to think about what’s best for you and your family.

“That’s the way I look at it.”

Oh, well, maybe Dwight the player will slam a few home for us in the NBA Finals before he starts thinking of leaving for the Knicks or Nets or whatever. It is just business.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Hey, this Dwight Howard guy is pretty darn good. Well, we all know that is an underestimation for the ages. Howard has been dominant.

Oh, yes, LeBron has been LeBron and is still clearly the greatest player this side of Kobe Bryant, but Howard has turned his team into winners and carried them on his back. When he becomes unstoppable underneath, then the Orlando shooters like Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, Rafer Alston, and Michael Pietrus become great 3 point shooters.

Howard wants a shot at the Lakers

Vinnie Johnson once remarked after making a dozen threes in a row in warm-ups, “But can you make them in a game with a hand in your face?” Well, when you are sending 2 or 3 guys down low to stop Howard, there are no hands in your face!

Everyone is still looking to LeBron to somehow pull this one out, but the Magic are frustrated with how much the public pays attention to only LeBron. They want respect and they want a shot at the NBA Title.

So the Cavs laid off Howard to start Tuesday, and he made them pay, scoring 11 points in the first six minutes. They went back to double-teaming him for much of the next three quarters, and Howard scored just six more points before the start of overtime. Still, all the attention he drew freed the Magic shooters, most notably Rafer Alston (notes) and Michael Pietrus (notes), who combined to make 11 3-pointers.

On one comical possession, Cavs guard Mo Williams turned his back on Alston to follow Courtney Lee (notes). With no other Cav within five feet of him, Alston buried yet another 3-pointer.

“We need one stop,” James said. “We haven’t got one stop to win a ballgame yet.”

James has realized he can’t beat Howard and these Magic alone. He received more support on Tuesday than he did in Game 3, but it still wasn’t enough. Williams made just two shots after halftime, falling flat, so far, on his “guarantee” that the Cavs would win the series.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

No sooner do you put out a post on how great LeBron is and how much of a battle he is in with Kobe Bryant to be the best player and along come the Magic and make LeBron all human again.

News flash, LeBron is not the Terminator.

Movie news Terminator Salvation: Your intrepid author got the chance to see this movie this past weekend and the Terminators did not fare any better than LeBron did in game three. Like LeBron, the Terminators missed their free throws late in the game and the result was a less than satisfying movie, in spite of Moon Bloodgood playing the hot hot Blair Williams.

LeBron James from Terminator to Human

The Magic came to play and the referees came to whistle. They weren’t just whistling Dixie, they were whistling fouls and there were over 80 of them.

Orlando shot 51 free throws, hitting 39. Cleveland attempted 35, making 26.

James shot 24 free throws, making 18. Dwight Howard (24 points and nine rebounds) made 14-of-19 free throws — including big ones down the stretch — before fouling out and Hedo Turkoglu hit 11-of-12.

Howard, a career 59 percent free-throw shooter, said he was singing a song in his head to relieve the pressure at the line.

” I didn’t think about it too much. I just tried to shoot,” Howard said. “I heard a song playing at halftime. I just kept thinking about dancing. If my free throws are going in, I might have to keep up that routine.”
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Late in the game with Orlando protecting the lead, James just could not make the plays to get Cleveland back in the game. One time he was Read more

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Ok, pull it together; this game did make sense, only you were in denial. Well, same here, denial, denial. You have to look at the facts of the recent past and the facts say that Orlando is 9 - 3 against the Cav’s in their last 12 meetings.

But it was Cleveland’s home court. Surely, LeBron is going to turn it on, right? Yes and Yes.

LeBron was magnificent as usual with 49 points, but it just was not enough.

Dwight Howard just keeps getting better and better

On the other hand, Dwight Howard was definitely pumped up, maybe too much. He not only had a monster game, but opened with a monster dunk and destroyed the 24 second clock.

Howard delayed the game — and then he derailed the Cavs. He followed rookie Courtney Lee’s miss, dunking the ball hard for the Magic’s first basket. Too hard. His dunk collapsed the 24-second clock affixed atop the basket backboard one minute into the game, sending it falling against the support beam.

It didn’t tumble to the court, but the clock stopped working, causing a nine-minute delay.

After Cavs personnel surveyed the damage, they brought in two 24-second clocks out of storage that were placed on the floor. All NBA teams have spare shot-clocks in case of malfunctions. (The clock was repaired for the second half of play.)

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The Magic now have home court advantage, complements of a last second 3 pointer by Rashard Lewis and 30 points and 13 rebounds from Dwight Howard. The Magic will still play the next game in Cleveland, but are full of confidence and have home court advantage.

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