Preview: Magic wrap up road trip with showdown against Grizzlies
TV: FOX Sports Florida
TIME: Pregame coverage begins at 7:30 p.m.
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The Memphis Grizzlies will look to bounce back from their first home loss of the season and cap a four-game homestand on a positive note when they host the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night.
The Grizzlies opened 4-0 at home and was 5-1 overall before getting surprised by the Charlotte Hornets 104-99 on Monday night.
Poor shooting doomed Memphis against Charlotte, with the Grizzlies making just 34.3 percent of their shots overall and 22.9 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.
Orlando Magic on FOX Sports Florida
Usually reliable Mike Conley and Marc Gasol both had off nights, combining to miss 25 of their 33 shots and 13 of their 15 3-point attempts. They totaled 26 points.
“Everything went wrong at the same time,” Memphis coach David Fizdale said of the shooting failures. “It just seemed like we couldn’t make a layup when we had an open layup. When we had open threes, we couldn’t make open threes.”
Orlando, which had lost at Charlotte on Sunday night, rebounded with a 115-99 win at New Orleans on Monday.
The Memphis visit caps a three-game trip.
Backup Magic big man Marreese Speights (18 points) stunned the Pelicans with six 3-pointers off the bench to key the Monday win. In his first six games this season, Speights attempted nine 3-pointers, hitting three.
“When you see a guy come in and make every shot, you feel like it’s your night,” said Magic small forward Evan Fournier, who had 20 points in the win. “So we’re like, ‘OK, we’re not going to lose this game.'”
The teams have split their two-game season series each of the past two seasons, with all wins coming at home.
The Magic has lost nine straight at Memphis dating back to 2008.
Both teams sought to pick up the pace offensively this season. The results couldn’t be more different.
The Magic has undergone a remarkable transformation from a team that was 27th in the NBA in scoring last year at 101.1 points per game to the league’s second-highest-scoring club this season at 116.9.
The league’s third-worst shooting team a year ago is now the third-best at 48.7 percent, and the league’s second-worst at shooting 3-pointers is now the best at 44.1 percent.
Fournier and Aaron Gordon have led the charge. Fournier has made 54.5 percent of his shots overall and 55.6 percent of his threes; Gordon has shot 54.9 percent overall and 59.1 percent from long distance.
Gordon made only 28.8 percent of his 3-point tries last season.
The Magic has improved its pace-of-play rating from 96.8 a year ago, the 12th fastest in the league, to 104.2, currently the third best.
Memphis’ attempt to play at a faster pace, meanwhile, coincidentally has made the club better on defense.
The Grizzlies rank third in the league in defensive scoring average (95.6) and first in field-goal percentage allowed (.399) one year after those numbers were 100.0 and .443, respectively.
Memphis’ pace-of-play rating this season is 95.1, still the third slowest in the league, but slightly faster than last year’s 92.3.
