It’s game day Magic fan’s! Tonight we will see the LA Lakers vs Orlando Magic in both teams second scrimmage game since the NBA resumed.
This game has an incredibly friendly UK tip time of 5pm & will be available to watch live & on demand via the NBA League Pass.
MAGIC NEWS
This game is slated as a Magic home game so expect to see Magic graphics around the court, along with piped in chants of “DEFENCE” at the appropriate times.
As I write Orlando will only be without Markelle Fultz & Jonathan Isaac again. Fultz is precautionary having arrived late to the bubble. JI is being allowed to recover from his knee injury without being pressured. Both have now taken part in full contact 5 on 5 training sessions. Mo Bamba will be on a miutes restriction again.
Orlando came through our first game on Thursday against the Clippers without any injury concerns. The game ended in defeat but every player got minutes in as they seek match sharpness & game conditioning.
WHAT TO EXPECT
The game should be similar to the last in so far as we see the whole squad play some minutes. In our PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS episode this week we all agreed that today’s game should see the minutes grow for our core guys. We do not expect this game to see Coach Clifford utilising our usual player rotations heavily.
You can take a listen to that episode here:
https://orlandomagicuk.com/blog/penny-for-your-thoughts-episode-1/
or by subscribing to our YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl72EQRVc39Ozngxkz3vYrQ/featured
OUR OPPONENTS
Prior to the restart the Lakers lost veteran point guard Avery Bradley, who decided not to travel to Orlando. They signed free agent JR Smith as his replacement. Once in the bubble they then lost another veteran point guard in Rajon Rondo to a finger injury.
The Lakers in their opening scrimmage game lost 108-104 to the Dallas Mavericks. Their coach; Frank Vogel utilised all his avaialble squad. They were without Markieff Morris & Alex Caruso, both are currently listed as day-to-day so may not feature again.
Vogel played a starting lineup of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Danny Green & JaVale McGee. From the bench came Kyle Kuzma, Quinn Cook, JR Smith, Dwight Howard, Dion Waiters & Jared Dudley. None of the starters played big minutes. Both LeBron & Davis featured in just 15 minutes each & contributed 12 points each.
MAGIC HOPES
The result in these games is not important, finding our rhythm & conditioning is. Playing effectively, not sustaining any injuries & seeing progression from the Clippers game is far more relevant.
That being said we are facing the Lakers so we all still want to see a win at the end of the 4th!
On an individual basis it would be good to see Evan Fournier have a better shooting game than in our first outing. Love him or loath him Evan remains too important to the team to contribute only 2 points. Equally James Ennis III & DJ Augustin can improve on their contributions.
MO BAMBA
Could we see Mo Bamba have a bigger role in this game?
I think it is doubtful for today having read that Bamba has not had more than 5 or 6 minutes in the 5 on 5 contact workouts. As with so much to do with the Magic any answer will be purely speculative as our front office notoriously play things close to their chest.
Josh Robbins on Twitter reported Coach Clifford said some days ago of Mo, “He’s gonna take some time for him to just be able to get to a place that he could play more minutes.”
ENJOY THE GAME
So for now friends enjoy the game. Hopefully we can be talking about an injury free, solid performance that got us a win!
LET’S GO MAGIC!
