Orlando Magic vs. Portland Trail Blazers Preview

ThePortland Trail Blazers将急于擦,酸味的吗mouths after their opening night loss to the Los Angeles Clippers by the score of 123-111. Any thoughts of an upset didn’t last long as the Clippers demonstrated themselves to be a superior team from the opening tip. A nice Blazers debut from Malcolm Brogdon, pleasantly mature play from Shaedon Sharpe, and a generally solid performance from Anfernee Simons were the happiest takeaways for those that need to find some positives.

The Orlando Magic meanwhile had themselves a coming out party on Wednesday, or so they hope. The Magic demonstrated some level of maturity in keeping theHouston Rocketsat bay when momentum shifted, and in the end ran out to a 116-86 victory. No strangers to seasons full of youthful mistakes and inexperience, Orlando is now further along the curve and one would think they are at least a season or two ahead of Portland. Orlando is targeting this season as the one where they make some noise instead of just waiting on ping pong balls. A West Coast road win would be another step in that direction.

Portland Trail Blazers vs. Orlando Magic - Friday, October 27 - 7:00 p.m. PT

How to watch on TV:Root Sports, NBA League Pass

Blazers injuries:Ish Wainright (out), Anfernee Simons (out)

Late breaking news:

Magic injuries:Kevon Harris (out)

The Matchup

• Turnovers.With two young teams on the court you’d be right thinking that we’re likely see lots of turnovers. In their first games Orlando had 16 turnovers while the Blazers had 18. With so many new faces and young players, frankly the Blazers would do well to have fewer than 18 against the Magic. A key for winning the game though isn’t the number of turnovers per se but rather having fewer than their opponent.
• Rebounds.In their first game the Magic cleaned the boards efficiently, grabbing 63.3% of all available rebounds, the best in the NBA for any team’s first game. Compare that to the Blazers figure of 47.4%. Even more impressive is that Orlando tracked down a remarkable 45.7% of available offensive rebounds. Perhaps the Magic’s success says more about Houston than it does about Orlando, but if the Blazers want to be competitive they’ll need to hit the glass hard.
• Patience.Folks on staff at Blazer’s Edge were generally pretty realistic about Portland’s chances against the Clippers, but truth be told few of us expected it to be quite as deflating as it was. Our brains said it wasn’t going to end well but our hearts wanted to see Scoot drop a cool 30 points, Ayton to be the center of our dreams, and Sharpe to dunk LA into oblivion. Disappointment is real, but it’s time for the head to take over again. This team isn’t just young, it is inexperienced with no core of players who have played together much. We can’t promise that the results will get better any time soon, but we can be quite confident in saying that it will get more fun. Maybe just not quite yet.

What Others Are Saying

The bench delivered for Orlando in their victory over Houston and Jonathan Isaac was a big part of that according toNathaniel Marrero of Sports Illustrated.

Isaac sparked a 24-7 run to close out the third quarter. He got to the rim on three separate occasions for seven points in the final minute and 34 seconds of the quarter. He capped off the third stanza with a huge block over Jalen Green and drew a technical foul.

Philip Rossman-Reich of Orlando Magic Dailyrevels in an opening night win for the Magic.

Orlando rode that wave — everything from the opening introductions that featured Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkolgu to the throwback jerseys to the energy of an opening night — to a win. They showed everyone exactly who they could be and the crowd returned that energy 10-fold.

In The Bounce Newsletter Zach Harper and Shams Charaniapreview the Magic’s season and include their best- and worst-case scenarios.

Best:This is a Play-In Tournament team that gets the No. 8 seed in the East. Their defense to end last season is real as the guards step up to improve offensively.

Worst:The end of last season was a fluke, the team regresses and can’t maintain its high-level defense. None of Orlando’s guards look like they belong, so they miss the Play-In Tournament.