Am I surprised the Magic evened the series tonight? No. Am I disappointed? Very. Both teams played poorly, but I feel like the Sixers could have easily won the game. 80 percent of their problems came from sheer carelessness or laziness. 16 turnovers -- careless. 14 offensive rebounds allowed -- lazy.
As poorly as Orlando played, the Sixers played worse. If they play an average basketball game, they come out on top. The Sixers might have blown a rare opportunity to grab ahold of this series tonight. The Magic aren't going to shoot 26 percent from downtown very often, which brings me to my next point.
I strongly believe the Magic's three-point shooting in the first game was stifled by good defense. Tonight however; the Sixers reverted back to their old ways, allowing a good amount of open shots, but the Magic didn't make them. Unfortunately the Sixers failed to capitalize.
Three players who cannot be blamed for tonight's loss are Andre Miller, Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young.
Stat of the night: Miller, Iggy and Thad scored 71 points. Everyone else scored 16.
There's not too much to say about the Sixers "big 3". They all came to play tonight (minus a couple turnovers), and I'll take games like these any night.
I also had a couple problems with coach DiLeo. One, why did we go back to double-teaming? After having success without it, the Sixers not only doubled Dwight tonight, but Hedo, Rashard and Courtney Lee at times. Is this DiLeo's fault or over-aggressiveness by the players? Either way DiLeo needs to end it real fast.
The other problem I had with DiLeo was, he played Bill Green for 20 minutes. It's bad enough that we have to witness the "Garbage" Green for 20 minutes, but DiLeo was also running plays for him! You know the situation's bad when the opposing announcers are commenting on how awful your player is.
There's not much else to say. A series split is nice. I feel like we should have won tonight, but I'll get over it, and I hope the Sixers do as well. Game three is in Philadelphia on Friday night. Let's protect home court!
P.S. The officiating was atrocious for both teams tonight.