This game would be more interesting if it was a 12:30 or one o'clock game because then there would be a Mo Pete award winner (Mo Pete as a Raptor was known to go out Saturday night and hit the clubs hard and then would be hung over for the 12:30-one o'clock game) but sadly it will be a 6 O'clock game.
They are playing the Orlando Magic and Superman who have allowed opponents only to shot 41.1% and holding them to only 87.25 points a game which is fourth best in the league while Raptors give up 95 points and 41.6 shooting to opponents which is 12 in the league. The Magic are 1 and 0 @ home and the Raptors are 1 and 1 on the road coming off a very hard fought loss to the Mavs on Friday Night.
For the Magic it is clear that Dwight "superman" Howard will get his as he is averaging 17 points a game which is low for him but is still a monster on the boards with 17.5 boards a game with 52 of his 70 boards on the defensive glass but is still not very good at the line going 14 of 36 from the line so the Raptors need to not give him easy baskets and send him to the line to earn his points. After Superman it is all about bombs from three as the Magic hoisted almost 25 attempts from behind the arc with 99 in 4 games and have made 38 of them which is 9.5 a game which means that they get 28.5 of their 96.8 points a game. Three attack is lead strongly by Ryan Anderson who has shoot 37 of the 3's which is just more than 37% of their attempts but also had made 16 of 38 made 3's and it accounts for 12 of his 19.5 points a game so someone will need to have hand in his face so he does not have a clear shot at the basket. Former Raptor Hedo Turkoglu is enjoying life at Walt Disney World as he is shooting 47% from the floor and is 9 for 19 from beyond the arc and has averaged 14.3 points a game and J.J. Redick has averaged 13.5 points a game but it all comes down to the boards as the Magic bringing down 43.8 boards a game and opponents are bringing down 41.8 boards and Howard himself has 17.5 of the 43.8 Magic boards.
So Jerryd Bayless is out for the game and there is no timeline for his sprained ankle that he suffered in Dallas on Friday and it is worse than the one he suffered on the same court just over a year before in Dallas. For tonight game Dwane Casey is saying that he will have four man rotation at the point with Anthony Carter, Leandro Barbosa, and Gary Forbes joining Jose Calderon as the Raptors are now going to play 5 games in the next 6 nights with Tuesday being the only day off for the Raptors in that stretch as they will have a three in a row beginning Wednesday at home to the Cavs and then head back on the road as they play 17 of their first 26 games on the season on the road. So the Raptors tonight will need Amir, James, Ed, Jamaal, Rasual Butler, and Andrea to hit the boards hard while the guards protect the 3-point arc and have a hand in the face of the shooter so they do not give up easy points. Also DeMar Derozan need to find his shot early in the game as it is unlikely that the Raptors can bank on another 30 plus game from Andrea so DeMar needs to get to the hoop so that the worst case is that he is going to the free throw line a place they did a great good trying to get to the line on Friday but before that the Raptors were nowhere near getting to the line in the first two games and if they attack Superman they can kill two birds with one stone having Superman sitting.
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