Posted on April 18 2011 by Brayden Dixon

NBA Playoffs – Orlando Magic stunned by the Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks were not looking at all like a team that could get the Orlando Magic into any trouble. Before the series began, I was quite certain that the Magic would crush the Hawks in 5 games at the most. Let’s face it: the Hawks had been skidding badly throughout the end of the season, but that extremely precise shooting from outside the perimeter and their exceptional ball handling skills where something that neither we nor the Magic had expected. And the Hawks made them suffer for it.

The big trouble for Orlandos comes in when one realizes that Stan Van Gundy has designed a team that relies heavily on Dwight Howards exceptional defensive skills. But to get the opponent into the paint, the Magic defense puts on the opponents shooters on the perimeter. But Orlando really couldn’t manage to bring down the Hawks shooting from the perimeter, and that cost them game one of this best of seven series.

So what happened on game 1? Well for starters, Atlanta scored only 36 of their 103 points in the paint, so they were quite lethal shooting from the perimeter. Even more, the Hawks became the first opponent in 16 consecutive postseason games to score 100 points against the Magic.

Dwight Howard received his third straight defensive-player of the Year award. Should he feel like to make it into the NBA Playoffs second round, he better force the Hawks into finding another way of beating them. Those open spaces in the perimeter can’t just be given up so easily, because the Hawks will make them pay.

The Atlanta Hawks are also in a need to revenge the 4 game sweep that the Magic gave it on last season’s NBA Playoffs second round. It still seems fairly hard for the Hawks to pull off the upset and make it into the second round. But heck, it’s certainly going to look a bit better then last years matchup. It already has.

Similar Posts:

Share

Leave a Reply