The intensity of the Magic team's schedule after the All-Star is significantly higher than before the All-Star team, and most of the weak teams in the league in the first half of the schedule will have to be replaced in the second half of the schedule.

In the remaining two months from mid-February to mid-April, the Magic will play several of the biggest teams in the East, such as the Celtics, Cavaliers, Hawks and Heat, in 31 games.

Although the Lakers' two regular season games have all ended, they still have to play against teams with 50 wins in the regular season such as the Nuggets, Hornets, Rockets, Mavericks, and Jazz.

Combined, the number of matches played by these teams has reached a total of 13, accounting for 42% of the remaining fixtures, and a large part of these games are played away from home, so the difficulty can be imagined.

The Magic want to keep their current No. 1 record in the league, and with the Cavaliers and Celtics behind him in hot pursuit, it would be a lie to say that there is no pressure.

And before the trade deadline after the All-Star break, many teams in the league also made big moves to trade reinforcements to prepare for the final sprint of the regular season.

The Miami Heat sent Sean away. Marion and other players, through a three-way trade, to get O'Neal Jr. and Jamario. Moon.

The Suns, on the other hand, chose to bring Dio to the game before the All-Star Weekend began. Bell and others packed and traded to the Bobcats in exchange for the dunk king Jason. Richardson.

Compared with the various big trades that shook the league before and after the All-Star last season, the trade deadline for the 08-09 season can be described as calm, and the Heat's trade is still a little bigger.

This is mainly because the roster structure of the league's top teams this season has been relatively reasonable.

Just like the current Magic team, which has the highest record in the league, and the internal and external duo of the supermagic complement each other, there is no need to make any big trades to disrupt the existing good chemistry.

And the Los Angeles Lakers, the leader of the West, also obtained Artest's relationship in advance, reached a full physical state, and their combat effectiveness is extremely strong, and they don't need to get Gasol to make the Lakers have a qualitative change like last season.

It is worth mentioning that the Rockets are still the same as the original historical development, and the street ball king Raff. Alstom is trading away.

The reason why the Rockets traded the main point guard Alston was because of Aaron. The Rise of Brooks.

Also a small point guard, Brooks has faster speed, stronger scoring ability, and is a full nine years younger than Alston.

Now that Brooks has played a role in the Rockets, there is no need for the team to keep Alston.

Originally, the Rockets made a three-way trade with the Magic and the Grizzlies, and got Kyle from the Grizzlies by sending Alstom. Lowry and Magic forward Brian Murray. Cook.

But now the butterfly effect has led the Rockets not to trade with the Magic, but to trade Alstom to New York in exchange for an obscure average player plus a second-round pick.

Originally, during this time period, the Magic's Nelson was injured, resulting in the Magic team lacking a main point guard, so they urgently traded with the Rockets to get Alston for a transition.

But at this stage, the Magic team, although Nelson also suffered some minor injuries, but the team has Dragic, even if it is only Dragic in his rookie season, because of the baptism of the European League, he still has good impromptu power, and the Magic team, which originally focused on point forward, does not have high requirements for the point guard position, can dribble over half the court, can shoot three-pointers, and first-year rookie Dragic is fully competent.

Because of this, the Magic did not participate in the Alstom trade, which indirectly led to the Rockets missing out on getting Kyle from the Grizzlies. Lowry's chance.

At this time, it was still unknown, and it could only be given to Mike. Lowry, who played as a substitute for Conley, will have much better achievements in the future than Conley, although looking at the average data of the two careers, A 14.7 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists, a 14.8 points, 3 rebounds and 5.7 assists are almost comparable, but Conley has only one best defensive 2 team honor and an All-Star experience in his career, and the only thing that people can remember is his 5-year 153 million super sky-high contract, at that time, this contract extension with the Grizzlies was the largest contract in the history of the league, so it also caused a lot of repercussions, basically thinking that Conley was not worthy of this contract, and the Grizzlies management had a lot of brains.

Lowry, on the other hand, was named to the All-NBA team, was a six-time All-Star, and more importantly, in the 2018-19 season, he teamed up with Leonard to win the NBA championship.

Of course, although the Rockets missed Lowry by mistake, it was not a particularly loss, after all, in the original history, Lowry was finally traded to the Raptors by the Rockets after playing for the Rockets for three seasons, which shows that the Rockets are destined to miss this good point guard, and the butterfly effect has allowed the Rockets to get Lewis and take a big advantage, so they can't take advantage of everything, right?

At this time, Lowry did not have a good time with the Grizzlies, after all, there was a Mike of the same age. Conley pressed on his head, there was no chance to show himself at all, and the Grizzlies didn't take Lowry very seriously, so it should be a good chance to intercept.

But Lowry's technical characteristics are very similar to Nelson's, with a strong body and good explosiveness, but his height is a hard injury.

If it is the Raptors' version of Lowry, it must be stronger than Nelson, but Lowry in the 08-09 season is still a little worse than Nelson, and the Magic team now has Dragic as a substitute, so there is no need to pursue Lowry.

……

The Magic kicked off the second half of All-Star Weekend with a Feb. 17 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, followed by a 107-117 loss to the New Orleans Hornets on Feb. 18.

In this game, Nelson was absent due to injury, and Dragic replaced Nelson as the starting point guard, and then was educated by Paul, who shot 14-of-22 from the field, with 36 points, 6 rebounds, 10 assists and 3 steals, while Dragic only scored 2 points and 2 assists on 1-of-4 shooting.

The Magic certainly don't blame Dragic, it's just a first-year second-round pick after all, and it's a bit reluctant for him to face Paul, a strong contender for the MVP of the regular season.

The Magic team that lost to the Hornets worked hard, and won 5 consecutive wins in the subsequent game, defeating the Bobcats who played against each other for the second time, the Heat, who had just changed their lineup after the trade, the Bulls led by Rose's single core, the New York Knicks who had rotted to the bones, and the four-unlike Pistons with Billups replaced by Iverson.

This wave of five consecutive wins won with ease and heart, once again proving the dominance of the Magic team.

On February 28, the Magic lost 100-106 to the Philadelphia 76ers, ending their winning streak.

The 76ers aren't underdogs in the East, with Iguodala and Andre Brown underdogging the underdogs. Under Miller's leadership, the winning rate can be maintained at 50%, and it is not surprising that the ranking should be around sixth or seventh in the East at the end of the regular season.

The Magic team had a collective poor outside hand in this game, including Wang Chao, who only had a shooting rate of just over 40% and just reached a score of more than 20 points, so it was not surprising to lose the game.

However, after losing to the 76ers, the time entered early March, and the Magic hosted the Phoenix Suns on March 3, winning the game 111-99.

The Phoenix Suns really leaked overnight, originally because of O'Neal, the team's victory has been greatly reduced, but I didn't expect that after the All-Star, Stoudemire was injured again, and it was a retinal detachment of the eye, and retinal recovery surgery was necessary, which is also the origin of the Stoudemire goggles game later.

The reimbursement of Xiao Si's season has put the Suns in a more passive situation, and they have now fallen out of the top eight in the West in the fierce schedule in the second half of the season, and their competitiveness has further plummeted.

In this game with the Magic, the Suns were unilaterally pressed throughout the whole game, although in the face of the experienced O'Neal, Howard suffered again, only 12 points and 8 rebounds in the game, but Wang Chao scored a game-high 36 points, and Turkoglu also scored 23 points and 7 assists.

The Magic who defeated the Suns defeated the New Jersey Nets 112-101 at home on March 6, which is also a Chinese derby, Wang Chao and the United Arab Emirates, in fact, there is nothing particularly highlight, after all, the current average of only 8.6 points and 5 rebounds per game The position of the United Arab Emirates in the team is already in jeopardy, and there is no way to compare with the prosperous Wang Chao.

On March 8, the Magic lost their game against the Celtics on the road.

Visiting Boston's North Shore Garden Arena again, this time Wang Chao failed to replicate the miracle of 70 points in a single game, and the Magic team was completely caught in the Celtics' defense, scoring only 86 points in the whole game, and finally lost to the Celtics 86-89.

The Magic team, which focuses on the one-star four-shot magic ball tactic, has been averaging around 105 points per game this season, which can rank among the top five in the league, and the defensive quality based on Howard's defensive system is also quite high, conceding only 95 points per game, ranking eighth in the league.

The 10-point net score also makes the Magic team stand out in terms of net points, and only the Cavaliers, who average 8.9 points per game in the league, are close to the Magic in this statistic.

But these data are only used as a reference for the strength of the team, just like the Magic team's loss to the Celtics, which made many people feel that although the Magic team is strong, it is still slightly inferior to the big three of the Green Army, which are experienced in the game.

The reason why the Magic team was able to beat the Celtics in the playoffs last season to reach the Finals was mainly because the Celtics suddenly encountered elevator door tactics in the playoffs and had no way to deal with it.

In fact, even now, they still have no way to restrict the elevator door tactics, but Wang Chao in order to save character in the playoffs, unless it is a more important game during the regular season, he will avoid using elevator door tactics as much as possible.

During the finals last season, the referees began to target the elevator door tactics, which made Wang Chao realize that the Magic team is not the future Warriors team after all, the situation is different, the opponent is different, and Stern's attitude will directly determine the lethality of this tactic.

According to the Warriors' arrogance for two seasons by relying on this tactic, it was not until Durant joined the Warriors that he began to gradually withdraw from the stage of history because he was blown to move and block and dismantle.

Therefore, in the ordinary regular season, Wang Chao still tries to avoid using elevator door tactics, which also leads to the Magic team losing some games that would not have been lost in the regular season, but this is really worth it in his opinion, after all, it doesn't matter how many more wins in the regular season, no matter how good the current Magic team plays, it is impossible to break the Bulls' 72-win record.

……

The Magic had an 11-3 record in 14 games throughout March, losing to the Celtics in early March, losing to the Cavaliers on March 17 and again at home to the Celtics at the end of March.

As a result, all four games of the regular season between the Magic and the Celtics are over, and the Magic team has an 11-3 record, which is completely at a disadvantage, and it also makes many media look down on the Magic in the playoffs between the two teams.

But even so, the Magic still ranked first in the league with a 59-14 record and an 80.8% win rate after all the games in March.

In the whole month of April, the Magic team only had 9 games left, of which only the Cavaliers, Hawks, and Rockets were stronger, and the Magic team did not disappoint Orlando fans, these 9 games, the Magic team won 8 of them in one go, and only lost one game to the Houston Rockets on the road.

This is another standard game in which Da Yao eats and sleeps and plays Warcraft, Da Yao has 24 points and 16 rebounds in the game, and Howard only has 13 points and 10 rebounds.

But the loss against the Rockets, Magic fans don't care anymore.

On April 15, the Magic defeated Charlotte Bobcats 98-73 at home, ending the final game of the 08-09 season and fixing the season at 67-15.

The 67-15 record in the regular season can be ranked seventh on the NBA all-time record list, which is definitely a pretty impressive record, after all, looking at history, there are very few teams that can reach this record, only the Bulls, Lakers, Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers and Suns (68 wins in 07) five teams have done it, and now the Magic is the sixth NBA team to achieve 67 wins.

Of course, the 73-win Warriors and the 67 wins of the five-star Warriors in the future cannot be counted, and the Mavericks, who were supposed to win 67 wins in the 06-07 season, also because of the arrival of Wang Chao, the overall strength of the Suns rose, resulting in only 65 wins in that season.

(End of chapter)