MVN - Most Valuable Network

Raptors-Magic Series Preview

First of all, I just want to break down the series looking at the these two teams meetings in the regular season.

These two teams met three times during the regular season, with the Magic winning the season series 2-1, taking the two teams only meeting in Orlando while splitting the two games in Toronto.

Their first meeting took place very early on in the season, the fifth game of each team’s season on November 7.  This contest was the game the Magic were victorious at the Air Canada Centre, winning 105-96.  Orlando got 24 points each from Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu, with Turkoglu adding 15 rebounds and 6 assists.  Dwight Howard and Keith Bogans each added 17 points, with Bogans grabbing 11 rebounds and Howard grabbing 9 rebounds.   For the Raptors, Chris Bosh led the way with 26 points and 10 rebounds, with Andrea Bargnani adding 16 points and 8 rebounds.  T.J. Ford added 12 points and 8 assists while Jose Calderon added 10 points and 6 assists in the defeat.

Their second meeting also took place in Toronto, on February 20, with the Raptors winning 127-117 behind a flawless effort by Chris Bosh, who scored 40 points on 14-of-16 shooting from the field, including a perfect 11-of-11 from the free throw line.  Carlos Delfino came up big off the bench, scoring 23 points, while Jose Calderon added 19 points and 13 rebounds.  Jamario Moon added 17 points and 12 rebounds, while Anthony Parker added 10 points.  Dwight Howard also came up big in this game, adding 37 points and 15 rebounds in the losing effort.  Lewis and Turkoglu again both scored the same amount of points, 16, with Turkoglu adding 9 assists in this contest where he struggled mightily (4-of-16) from the field.  Jameer Nelson added 13 points, while Maurice Evans added 12 points and 7 rebounds, with Bogans adding 11 points, albeit on 3-of-12 shooting from the field.

The third contest between these two teams took place in Orlando on March 4, and was one of the contests the Raptors played with Chris Bosh out due to injury.  They lost 102-87, getting 20 points and 7 assists from T.J. Ford to go along with 14 points from Jose Calderon.  Anthony Parker added 19 points and 9 rebounds in the loss, with Kris Humphries (10 points) being the only other Toronto player to record more than 6 points in the loss.  On the other end of the court, Turkoglu again impressed, scoring 24 points, while grabbing 7 rebounds and dishing out 8 assists.  Rashard Lewis added 22 points, while Dwight Howard added 19 points and 14 rebounds.  Nelson added 13 points in the victory.

I just wanted to get those numbers out there first, and since I’m really tired, I’ll finish the second half of the preview by breaking down these numbers and telling you Toronto’s keys to success in the series.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 1:19 am and is filed under Toronto Raptors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.