{"id":15131,"date":"2011-04-26T11:05:14","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T16:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15131"},"modified":"2011-04-26T11:05:14","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T16:05:14","slug":"game-5-atlanta-looks-to-close-out-orlando-at-the-amway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/game-5-atlanta-looks-to-close-out-orlando-at-the-amway-15131\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 5: Atlanta Looks To Close Out Orlando at the Amway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Joe Johnson has redeemed himself from last year's struggles against the Magic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Game 5:\u00a0 Atlanta Hawks AT Orlando Magic
\nApril 26, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 ORL -8
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 ORL -7.5
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 ORL -400 \/ ATL +330
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 ORL -380 \/ ATL +320
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 179
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 178<\/p>\n

Orlando faces something few experts and fans alike expected by the 5th game of this series:\u00a0 an elimination game.\u00a0 Orlando has struggled mightily from the field, and especially from three point range, an area they have excelled in over the past few seasons.<\/p>\n

The Magic’s last first round playoff exit was in 2007, and fans are left with the question of whether or not the trade the Magic made at mid season made the team any better at all.\u00a0 For as bad as Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis were, Hedo Turkoglu and Gilbert Arenas have been just as bad, if not worse.\u00a0 Jason Richardson has been a mild success story, but the real loss was Marcin Gortat.<\/p>\n

Orlando has shot 20% from downtown and Van Gundy assesses the problem as too much individualism in the players’ thought patterns.\u00a0 \u201cOn an individual basis as guys are struggling, the mentality becomes \u2018I gotta get myself going,\u201d\u2019 he said. \u201cAnd so guys are really hunting out shots and I think taking tougher ones because of that\u2026You\u2019ve gotta trust the teammates instead of the idea that we need some heroics.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s left Dwight in a precarious situation where he can ill afford foul trouble, nor can Van Gundy afford to take him out of the game if it happens.\u00a0 Due to this, Dwight Howard is averaging 32.2 points per game and has played 45, 48 (all game), 44, and 42 minutes in the four games of this series, an average of nearly 45 minutes a night.\u00a0 When the Magic had Gortat, Dwight Howard was able to at least get 10 minutes of rest a game.\u00a0 The question has to be, even if the Magic somehow improbably advance to round two, what will Howard even have left in the tank at that point?<\/p>\n

The Magic’s defense can plausibly be called good, but the job that the Magic have done on Joe Johnson, and especially Jamal Crawford has been very poor.\u00a0 Crawford became the first bench player since Kevin McHale to score 20+ in the first four games of a series.\u00a0 Indeed, Crawford is establishing himself as one of the best sixth men in recent history.<\/p>\n

For all the problems the Magic are facing, Hawks coach Larry Drew knows not to get complacent against a team that won 8 more games during the regular season.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s very important,\u201d Drew said. \u201cI\u2019m always talking about this team growing. To me, them positioning themselves like they are right now to go into Orlando and to finish this thing off, that\u2019s a huge step in our growth process\u2026Particularly after what they did to us last year\u2026it left a bad taste in our mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Atlanta’s last 7 games and the Hawks are 3-7 SU in their last 10 games.\u00a0 The Hawks are 1-5 SU in their last 6 games on the road and the total has gone UNDER in 12 of their last 17 road games.\u00a0 The total has also gone UNDER in 9 of Atlanta’s last 10 games while the Hawks are 6-1 SU in their last 7 games against the Orlando Magic.\u00a0 Atlanta is 2-7 SU in their last 9 road games in Orlando, however, and the total has gone UNDER in 6 of the last 8 road games against the Magic.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 5 of the Magic’s past 6 games and the Magic are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games.\u00a0 Orlando is 2-9 ATS in their last 11 games at home and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of their last 10 games at home.\u00a0 Orlando is 6-2 SU in their last 7 games against the Hawks.\u00a0 Orlando is 1-6 SU in their last 7 games against the Hawks.\u00a0 Orlando is 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games against the Hawks.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 9 of Orlando’s last 10 games against the Hawks and the Magic are 7-2 SU in their last 9 games against the Hawks.\u00a0 The Magic are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 home games against the Hawks.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 6 of the Magic’s last 8 games at home against the Hawks.<\/p>\n

Expect the Magic to come out with some fire and passion.\u00a0 If nothing else, they want to avoid the embarrassing 4-1 defeat to a team many considered inferior.\u00a0 If the Magic can’t properly defend the Hawks backcourt, though, this series ends tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game 5:\u00a0 Atlanta Hawks AT Orlando Magic April 26, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 ORL -8 Current Line:\u00a0 ORL -7.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 ORL -400 \/ ATL +330 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 ORL -380 \/ ATL +320 Opening Total:\u00a0 179 Current Total:\u00a0 178 Orlando faces something few experts and fans alike expected by the 5th game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[834,833,4357,2897,3738,659,3649],"class_list":["post-15131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-dwight-howard","tag-jamal-crawford","tag-joe-johnson","tag-larry-drew","tag-orlando-magic","tag-stan-van-gundy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15132,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15131\/revisions\/15132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}