Toronto Raptors vs. Orlando Magic

[DynastYWarrioR6]

Pretty simple, vote for the winner of this matchup. Winner advances to play the winner of the 4/5 series.

Toronto Raptors - cpawfan
C: Eddy Curry / Etan Thomas / Chris Andersen
PF: Kevin Garnett / Boris Diaw
SF: Ron Artest / James Jones / Nicolas Batum
SG: Stephen Jackson / Jerry Stackhouse
PG: Rodney Stuckey / Jason Williams

Orlando Magic - Dark Defender
C: Joakim Noah / Steven Hunter / Oleksiy Pecherov
PF: Josh Smith / Chuck Hayes
SF: Andrei Kirilenko / Renaldo Balkman
SG: Monta Ellis / Nick Young
PG: Leandro Barbosa / Roko Leni Ukic / Jacque Vaughn

 

[pegs]

IR: Monta Ellis

 

[User01]

he'll be back by the playoffs... I think this was actually a very close matchup, surprised its this unbalanced.

 

[Celtic Fan]

I think, come playoff time, Diaw would start over Eddy Curry and is lack of interest in playing hard or giving consistent effort.

 

[cpawfan]

Curry would get all kinds of touches on this team, so his interest would be there. All four of the other starters will find the open man if they are doubled, especially KG with his big to big passes. Additionally, Curry will get some dump ins each half just to force other teams to defend him. For all of Curry's many faults, he can score on the block.

In this series, I'd make Noah have to guard Curry so that Noah picks up quick fouls as there is a huge drop off from Noah to Hunter. Both Stuckey and SJax will force the issue by taking the smaller Barbosa and Ellis into the paint to force either Smith or AK-47 over for help defense. Diaw comes off the bench because his versatility allows me to create mismatches and dictate game flow.

On Defense, we'll switch a lot to counter the speed of Monta and Barbosa with length and physical strength. We'll cut off drives to the basket and force Orlando to be jump shooters. Because of KG's strong rebounding, we'll be able to maintain the offensive glass while still sending back defenders to slow down Orlando and force them into running a half court offense.