After Monday night’s decision to play confidence booster to a moping Charlotte Hornet’s team, the Kings Goodwill Tour has made their next stop in the Orlando. At 14-32, the Magic are tied for last place in the East and are in major need of a hug, and a victory. The Kings have now lost eight in a row and are in their last truly winnable contest before February 3rd’s match-up against the Dallas Mavericks. Tonight’s game is an absolute heavy weight bout in the battle of First to the Worst! Come for De’Aaron Fox’s magical hair blow right by Elfrid Payton’s crisis of personality hair-do, stay for Arron Afflalo trying to destroy Papa G with a haymaker. Let’s talk Kings basketball!
When: Tuesday, January 23rd; 4:00 pm PST
Where: Amway Center; Orlando, FL
TV: NBCSCA
Radio: KHTK Sports 1140 AM
For Your Consideration
Torturous Sorcerers: The Magic are not a good team and they haven’t been for quite awhile. After starting the season with a surprising 8-4 record, the Magic have rattled off three losing streaks of over seven games and, like the Kings, are punching their way to the bottom of the proverbial NBA pile. So what makes the Magic so tragic? For one, their defense if pretty awful. Opponents playing Orlando average over 110 points per game, the third worst line in the league, and their fourth worst defensive rating doesn’t invite positive thinking either. Orlando is a bottom ten team in rebounding and steals, but make up for it a bit by being the 12th best shot blocking team in the league and 11th in player fouls. So they swat shots, and don’t foul much, which is fine with me considering that the Kings are the third worst foul shooting team in the entire NBA.
On offense, the Magic are lead by Aaron Gordon and Evan “Don’t Google His Last Name” Fournier, with each guy averaging a couple hairs over 18 points per game. Gordon especially has turned a corner this year when it comes to distance shooting where he’s up to 35.3% on 5.8 attempts per game. The sadly underrated and nearly forgotten Nikola Vucevic had been having himself another solid season at what basically 17.4 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists but a hand injury will have him sidelined for six weeks. The subject of much deliberation in Kingsland, Elfrid Payton, is trying his very hardest to prove the Nik Rocks narrative of the 2014 draft correct by growing the Orlando Magic logo as his actual hair, and sticking with the bit even after it literally blocks his shot. On the court he’s scoring 13.2 points per game, and dishing 6.4 assists, all while shooting 54% from the field and 39% from three (in less than two attempts a game). The Magic as a team shoot the sixth worst percentage from deep at 35.1%, but don’t you worry about having to watch a game without triples; the Kings have given up much better percentages to much worse shooting teams.
The Kings have found themselves a team with similar, though less extreme, weaknesses: the Magic aren’t good at rebound, don’t score much from distance and give up big scoring games on a consistent basis. The Kings are on a second game of a back to back, and the Magic are coming off a win against the Boston Celtics on Sunday night. What that means? With teams this bad, absolute nothing.
Prediction: Neither of these teams win the #1 pick in the 2018 draft and this game will have little to no baring on anything and it will be your fault because you decided not to tune in till the fourth quarter. The Kings organization will ban you from further games for the injustice, and will draft Grayson Allen as punishment.
Kings: 108, Magic: 103
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