Magic at Timberwolves Game #18

Magic at Wolves
7:00 pm CST
FS North

The Magic come in at 9-8 and riding a three game winning streak during which they held all three opponents to 90 or 91 points. Their defense is rounding into shape under Scott Skiles and is now 9th in the league overall.

Skiles recently moved Victor Oladipo to the bench, where he has been eviscerating 2nd unit opposition; in fact the Magic bench with Oladipo, Andrew Nicholson, and Andrew Gordon as the main contributors has looked excellent recently, and it will be a chore for the Wolves to handle that group.

We remember the first meeting of the season between these teams, which resulted in a Magic win in overtime in Orlando behind a couple of monster Evan Fournier three pointers after the Wolves forced the game into overtime behind their two young stars, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns. That game in Orlando was one of Towns' best performances so far as he finished with 21 points, 12 boards, and six blocks and forced Nikola Vucevic to the bench in the 2nd half.

One of the problems that night, which has not bitten the Wolves too frequently this season, was the Magic's dominance on the offensive glass. The Wolves really need to keep them from getting 2nd chances. They also need to do a better job of keeping Elfrid Payton out of the paint, especially to score, as he had a big offensive night against the Wolves and Ricky Rubio in the first match up.

Rubio is expected to play tonight after missing the last couple of games with a sore ankle. They are being very cautious with it, as he wanted to play on the West Coast, but the training staff held him out. He appears ready to go tonight.

Expected lineups

Magic

Elfrid Payton
Evan Fournier
Tobias Harris
Channing Frye
Nikola Vucevic

Wolves

Ricky Rubio
Kevin Martin
Andrew Wiggins
Kevin Garnett
Karl-Anthony Towns

Our blogging buddies are at Orlando Pinstriped Post. Be excellent.

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Enjoy. Chat. Go.