April and May are without a doubt some of the best times of the year for sports. With the NFL, we get some good playoff games, but those are usually only two days a week. October baseball has a magic feeling, but I personally feel like the three Wild Card teams have taken away from a bit of that.
With the NHL and NBA, we have almost nightly action for a few weeks, and the games are typically great. Tonight, we have two NBA games, and the first one is between the Orlando Magic and the Detroit Pistons in Game 2.
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The Magic enter this one having already taken away home-court advantage from the first-seeded Pistons. I was not one of the people who thought Orlando would get swept, but I did believe the Pistons would be able to advance without too much trouble. In Game 1, the Magic never really struggled.
Keep in mind, this team lost to the 76ers in a road Play-In Game, then had to go home and beat a pesky Hornets team. The Hornets’ game turned out laughable as they destroyed them. Beating the Pistons in Detroit was a bit of a shock, but to me, the bigger surprise is that they outscored Detroit in three of the four quarters. Paolo Banchero was fantastic in the game as usual, scoring 23 points and hauling in a team-high nine rebounds. All five starters scored 16 or more points. That’s the key to the Magic’s success – team contributions, and a dominant Banchero.
The Pistons have probably seen that everyone thinks that the sky is falling for them. That’s not quite the case. A lot of teams lose Game 1 and come back to win the series. It usually is a bit of a wake-up call. However, the bigger issue is that the Pistons shouldn’t need a wake-up call. They have won nothing and are still growing as a team. They should’ve been hungry and looked to take the series lead immediately. Cade Cunningham was his usual brilliant self, scoring 39 points. However, just one other player on his team reached double digits in scoring. A lot of talking heads blamed this game on Jalen Duren. He only had eight points in 33 minutes. You do expect at least a double-double out of him if the Pistons want to battle.
Game 2 is often about adjustments.
You’ll see the zig-zag theory quite a bit, but that’s not always the case. For the Magic, you don’t really think you need to make adjustments. They shot almost 50% from the floor, but they only hit about 30% of threes. Their defense held the Pistons to just 101 points and 40% shooting. This game will be more about controlling the glass and getting the team involved for Detroit. The problem is that this is not a great matchup for the Pistons.
Suggs is a capable defender (even if Cade scored almost 40 on him). Wendell Carter Jr. is a decent defender on Duren. Desmond Bane and Franz Wagner are just better players than what the Pistons have. Give me the Magic +8.5 here. I do think Detroit wins, but the points offered are disrespectful to the Magic. I also like Duren to get a double-double, but at -188 isn’t worth playing.
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