The holiday season is already here, but there wasn’t much magic in the air for at least one NBA betting team at the Amway Center last night. Jason Kidd scored 13 points and dished out a game-high 12 assists to help the Dallas Mavericks to a 105-99 win over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night, improving to an outstanding 10-1 on the road this season. Their performance wasn’t the biggest story from the game however, as the recently reconstructed Magic lost for the eighth time in nine games.
The Magic looked disorganized once again without much sports betting time to practice since a series of blockbuster moves reshaped the entire look of the team this past Saturday. Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardson, and Hedo Turkoglu all saw big minutes in Orlando’s second straight loss since the deals went down. The Magic had made the deals that sent Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, and Marcin Gortat out of town on the weekend because that group hadn’t been providing All-Star center Dwight Howard with enough help, but nothing has changed in the first few games since.
Howard was a monster once again in the sportsbook promo loss, scoring 26 points and grabbing 23 rebounds in the biggest individual performance of the night, but didn’t get any help from his supporting cast. The game was the third straight in which the All Star center has grabbed at least 20 boards, but while he has done an excellent job creating for himself and his teammates the same cannot be said about any other member in white-and-blue. The three big names acquired in the deals were the ones that struggled the most in their home debuts, with Arenas the worst of them all. Arenas shot just 1-for-6 from the field to finish with two points, while Richardson and Turkoglu combined for 19 on 6-for-24 shooting. While the individual play is an obvious concern, head coach Stan Van Gundy continues to allude to the fact that the team hadn’t had time to draw up plays for the newcomers, and that in time the chemistry and rhythm of the offense will make this team that much better.
However, for the near future at least time is a luxury that the Magic don’t have. Orlando will face three of the best teams in the NBA over the next seven days, including the San Antonio Spurs and defending Eastern conference champion Boston Celtics back-to-back over their next two. While Van Gundy has a point in that the team should get better with time once they develop a familiarity with one another, there is a pattern through the first two games together. In each of the Magic’s last two losses, Orlando has fallen behind by double digits late in the game only to mount some sort of comeback and get it close before once again falling back. Those flashes have shown how good they can be, but time and consistency will be a major factor going forward in to this NFL betting weekend.
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