Now that the Dwight Howard drama is over, at least for this season, the Orlando Magic can now focus on what their goal is every season: winning an NBA championship. The Magic believe winning a title is an attainable goal.
The Magic began the "crisis-free" portion of their schedule Friday night with a breezy 86-70 win over the New Jersey Nets. It seemed that players used the game to let off some steam after a few tense days leading to the trade deadline and played a bit too relaxed at times. The Magic won easily despite committing 18 turnovers — many of them the careless, unforced variety.
They need to hope they got that out of their system, because the quality of their opponents increases greatly the next two games. Sunday, Orlando travels to South Florida to face the Heat. Monday, the Heat are back home to entertain the Chicago Bulls.
The Magic has fared well against the top two teams in the East this season, having beaten both in the past 10 days: a 99-94 win at Chicago on March 8 and a 104-98 overtime win over the Heat on March 13.
Orlando is 1-1 against the first-place Bulls, 2-1 against the second-place Heat, and the Magic present matchup problems for each.
Against Chicago, the Magic have been able to diminish two key elements of the Bulls' attack by slowing Chicago’s transition game and taking away easy baskets at the rim by MVP Derrick Rose.
The Bulls average 14.4 fastbreak points per game this season. Against the Magic, it dips to 9.5 per game.
Rose makes a living on drives to the basket. He takes 51 percent of his shots in the paint, and he makes 54 percent of those attempts. Against the Magic, Rose still takes more than half his shots in the paint (57 percent), but with Howard protecting the rim, Rose makes just 35 percent of his attempts close to the basket.
When facing the Heat, the Magic take advantage of the Howard factor on offense. Dwight averages 20.3 points and 21.3 rebounds per game against Miami, and still Orlando gets open looks for its 3-point shooters, as the Heat have made at least 11 treys in each game against the Heat. Since the arrival of LeBron James and Chris Bosh in South Florida, Orlando is 4-3 against the Heat.
For the final third of this season, most of the attention will continue to focus on the Bulls and the Heat. But now that the trade deadline has passed and Howard still wears Magic blue, Orlando plans to make the Eastern Conference chase a three-team race to the top.
