The Beast from the East
posted: 12/1/2006 at 7:42 AM
If you think the Trail Blazers have been catching some red-hot teams lately, you’re correct. That’s not about to change Friday night, as Portland hosts the best team from the Eastern Conference, the Orlando Magic. Many expected Orlando to be improved this season, but not many thought they’d be 12 and 4 after 16 games.
The true measure for any eastern team is how they do against the much-tougher Western Conference. Well, not only are the Magic 5 and 1 against the West, they’ve started this road trip with impressive wins at Utah and Seattle. They’ve won five in a row overall, look to continue that streak.
I know we’re only a month into the season, but Dwight Howard is the dominant center in the east this season, and is a potential MVP of the league. He is an absolute monster, and has been putting up big numbers, averaging 17 points, and 14 rebounds per game. He already has 3 games of 20+ points, and 20+ rebounds. At Seattle on Wednesday, he had 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots.
The Magic start a big first unit, with Hedo Turkoglu (6-10), Tony Battie (6-11), and Howard (6-11), on the front line. Grant Hill is healthy and is playing very well, and point guard Jameer Nelson is as tough as nails and makes this Orlando engine roar.
If the offense isn’t enough, and it has been on most nights, the Magic are a force at the defensive end of the floor. They’ve been holding opponents to just 92 points per game, second-best in the NBA. It'll be another big challenge for Zach Randolph, against this Magic shot-blocking machine. We saw Zach have some success against Indiana when he moved out to the perimeter and hit a couple of jumpers. Even though the coaches would ultimately like him in the low block, if he can stretch the defense from the outside, that's fine with them. Problem is, he's Portland's best rebounder, and when he's outside shooting shots he doesn't have a chance at the offensive board.
Following their loss to Indiana on Tuesday, the Trail Blazers took Wednesday off, and returned to practice on Thursday. They mainly worked on defense, and worked on ways to slow down Orlando.
Coach Nate McMillan was a guest on Trail Blazers Courtside on Thursday night, and talked about what will be needed against the Magic. He also discussed the Indiana game, and gave us an update on the status of Raef LaFrentz and Brandon Roy. He also spent time talking about Howard, who he coached on Team USA at the World Championships.
A link to the interview with coach McMillan will be added, in this spot, very shortly.
We were also joined on the show by Joel Przybilla. Joel returned to the Blazers lineup for the game against the Pacers, and talked about how good it feels to be back. He’ll start again Friday night, and hopes to see more action, as he continues to get back into shape.
Friday night’s game against the Magic, is radio only, and begins at 6 o’clock on the Trail Blazers Radio Network.
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Hi Mike, greetings from Spain.I´m happy how things are going for Sergio.Mcmillan is a tough coach and make the players really sweat for their minutes.This way is how Sergio is going to improve and hopefully he will manage to win more minutes as season goes on.
When this i´m talking about comes true may be Mcmillan will be his rookie record 25 assist broken(difficult but not impossible while given enough minutes in a blowout game).Best wishes for Blazers as i´m an old fan from Sabonis era.
Howard is an example of an athlete with fairly limited basketball skills being just what the NBA ordered. He wasn't nearly as effective in international play as he is in the NBA. I think he's a freakish athlete, but i'm not too impressed with his game. He was a big baby during the World Championship's, so i'd love to see us knock them down.
It's going to be a pretty interesing star matchup between Z-Bo and Howard, although the individual defender of Howard will probably be Joel.
Dwight is a very young and promising player that is getting a breakout season, but his numbers are surely going to increase even more during the next years... so if "this" Howard is already a "beast", how are we going to call him when he becomes 23-24 years old and reaches the top of his potential?
As mrblazer said, he was at the World Championships, where he had some solid moments, mainly in the offensive end. In the semifinal against Greece I think he was one of the few players of the US Team that played good, at his level. With Elton Brand being overwhelmed by Baby Shaq (Schrortsanitis), I think Dwight Howard did a better job than the Clipper, but still it was not enough as the rest of the team had a lack of tenacity in the defensive end (and the Greeks also had some moments of heating up).
The Blazers have to be aware of the 3-pointers from Turkoglu, that takes advantage from the hard defense to D-Howard in the paint, which leaves spaces for wide open outside shots.
By the way, it's going to be a good chance to see Magloire and LaMarcus Aldridge defensive skills against dominant "paint players" if they are matched with D-Howard in any moment of the game.
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