Raptors Visit The Magic Kingdom

Vince Carter has a beard. It is comical, what isn't is the Raptors of late. Also no laughing matter is the lengthy injured list. The Raptors last practice had only 10 healthy bodies on the court. Barbosa was left back in Toronto and is out for this entire road trip at least. Jack sat out practice as he is still dealing with a sore knee. Andersen still has the flu listed as questionable. Linas Kleiza is also at less than 100%. He is listed as doubtful and Triano has said if no Kleiza that will mean Sonny Weems starts. Reggie Evans has a sore hip as well. Ed Davis is still not ready, coming back from knee surgery prior to training camp. It is a banged up group of Raptors facing two of the best teams in the East on a back to back.

The Basics: Orlando 5-2 ( 2nd in the East ) Toronto 1-7 (0-4 on the Road)

When Last We Saw Them: The Raptors coughed up a hair ball and the basketball and lost to the Bobcats. Raptors had a 5 point lead heading into the 4th quarter only to have that flipped and lose to the Bobcats by 5. Raptors had 17 turnovers in the 101-96 loss but none more costly then the one late in the game by Andrea Bargnani.

Key Match-ups: Jay Triano promises we will see a lot of Joey Dorsey matching up with Dwight Howard. It is always a key match-up when you face the Magic. Dwight is starting to expand his offensive game a little bit and has a few new tricks in the tool box. Demar DeRozan had an awful night vs the Bobcats. He had a good night vs one of his idols in Kobe Bryant earlier in the year. Well he also is a Vince Carter fan and will match-up with him. Air Canada vs Heir Canada and it should be fun to see if Demar can answer the challenge. Vince is a contract year and off the a decent start for the Magic. It isn't a match up but against the Magic if you do not defend the 3 point line your dead dead dead.

Other Things of Note: The Magic have a new arena (Amway Center) this season and this is the Raptors first visit. They have a 10-16 record all time visiting Mickey and the Magic. Stan Van Gundy will be into his team after they blew a huge lead to the Jazz and lost. On his staff is the first ever Raptors head coach Brendan Malone. Magic are the worst team in league from the free throw line early in this NBA season shooting just 65.5% at the line as a team.

In Case You Missed It: Chris Bosh and his Heat lost again and he was the focus of the Raptor Twitterverse. All based on in his latest apparent slag of Toronto. Under protest I decided to weigh in on Bosh and twitter circus. If you are like me and Boshed out you still might want to check it out and just scroll to the end.