Game night preview
ORLANDO MAGIC vs CLEVELAND CAVALIERS
Wednesday, Nov. 11. 8:00 p.m.
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The Magic (6-2) won’t have much time to prepare for their most anticipated contest of the season: an Eastern Conference Finals re-match with the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers (4-3) on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. The Magic swept the Cavaliers at home (3-0) during the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals and will look to continue that trend in front of ESPN’s national audience. Orlando’s first nationally televised contest of the regular season is sure to draw a lot of media attention and its players are looking forward to the challenge. “You know everyone loves Cleveland, so you know it’s going to be a good measuring stick,” Magic forward Matt Barnes explained. “This team had success against them last year and we look to carry that on this year.” In order to carry on that success, the Magic will need to limit All-Star forward LeBron James. The perennial MVP candidate is averaging 26.3 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.0 assists per game. “It’s virtually impossible,” Barnes said of defending James. “You just want to make players like him, Kobe (Bryant) and Paul Pierce earn their points. They are so offensively gifted that no one is going to shut them down. You just want to make them work for it, grind on them, beat them up a little bit and hopefully they take more shots than they make.” While there will be a lot of talk about James and the conference finals re-match, there will be an equal amount of media focus on the matchup between Magic All-Star center Dwight Howard and Cleveland center Shaquille O’Neal. Howard is on pace for another All-Star-caliber season, averaging 19.4 points and 11 rebounds per game. On the other hand, O’Neal is posting 11.1 points and 7.4 boards per contest, which are much more pedestrian numbers than his career averages of 24.6 and 11.2. Still the main question will be, does O’Neal make enough of a difference to push the Cavaliers past the Magic?
Here is the complete preview from Yahoo! Sports.
No line on the game yet due to the injury situation with the Magic.