After jumping to an early lead, the Magic fade in the second quarter and drop another game in their "playoff run." The Cavaliers win in Orlando, 114-106 to stay alive in the playoff hunt. Lebron James played all 48 minutes, putting up 33 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assits for the Cavaliers. Rookie Dwight Howard had 23 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Steve Francis played 44 minutes and contributed 23 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists. Personally, I like Francis; I think he plays hard most of the time. I wish he would take the complaining down a notch. I would also like to see the Magic drop his playing time down to about 38-40 minutes a game. The Magic have made the mistake all year long of leaving him in too long during the first quarter and often stretching over into the second quarter.
Our big men are in need of an attitude adjustment. There are way too many easy shots in the paint. If anything changes over the summer, I would expect some movement in the center and backup power forward area in favor of more toughness.
As for the rest of the team, they are playing hard - however we are just not getting enough out of our bench. I don't know that we need to play everyone on the bench as much as we do - but we need more minutes - quality minutes from the top 3 or 4 of the second unit. I could care less if its Stacey Augmon or Mark Jones out on the floor, but they need more than 5 minutes - and we don't need both of them every night.
Anyhow, as is the story for the year - bench production and player rotation really does this team in tonight. The defense was not all that great, but the Cavs weren't really interested in playing defense either.
Five games left, 3 on the road, two at home.
