Since When Do the Orlando Magic Have Problems with the Heat? A Bad Finish

Going into this game, even though I was at work, I looked up all the stats. Magic were 13-1 against Miami in the last 14 matchups. Beasley was only just starting to show colors. J-Will was picking up the Magic flair, and this was shaping up into a game that we actually thought we had.

And we did. But not everything goes as planned. Especially not since Lewis's return.

I wrote earlier about the downfall of Ryan Anderson now that Lewis is back and how much we're actually missing by limiting Anderson's minutes. It's gotten worse as Ryan had only 15 minutes against the Celtics and last night, 17.5 minutes.

I'll admit, I've become a bit of a Ryan Anderson fan (I was able to rewatch a decent chunk of Magic games after doing my research from my last article) so it hurt to see that, once again, Anderson outperforms Lewis with small minutes. Key weaknesses to this game.

Lewis —3-for-15 shooting, 1-6 from behind the arc. Nine points, three turnovers. Almost 33 minutes on the floor. While Lewis admits he's not yet up to speed with his shooting, a question is still on my mind: Why is he still on the floor for 33 minutes?

I mentioned before that Anderson posted better numbers within an average of 26 minutes against what Lewis could do in 38. Let's start to use that efficiency, please.

Barnes —One trey for the night. While his +/- is +4, he didn't seem too effective offensively to take advantage of Wade's absence, and was on the floor too long after Wade came back in the fourth (which, by the way, was when Wade started scoring).

Pietrus —Or lack thereof. Wade was kept to eight points over three quarters (I believe). The moment Wade hit the floor last night I prayed to God: "Please Lord, tell SVG to put Pietrus back in now before Wade gets hot."

Either God didn't care about my request or SVG was yelling just loud enough to not hear God. Either way, Wade went on a run that destroyed our once 11-point lead and all with our Superstar-defending Frenchman sitting on the bench. He played nearly 34 minutes, but was defensively efficient

Anderson —Again, lack thereof. Four-for-seven from the field and 3-for-5 from three-point-land. And still only 17.5 minutes, but he scored 12 ! It's fine...I think it's only fair that the one of the only two 55 percent+ shooters that game (Anderson and Williams*) sits on the bench and watches a horrible offensive squad fight against a Wade-inspired run.

Barnes and Redick were on the court with a combined five points, two of those in the fourth, from Redick.

These factors continue to haunt me. Right now the Magic has a fantastic record, but the losing Heat came into the Magic Kingdom and scorched us. And we could've done something about it.

*Note: Howard was also 60 percent, but we all know he doesn't really shoot.