Orlando Magic @ Washington Wizards

Yardbarker.com

In a rematch of each team’s opening night, the Orlando Magic will head up to Washington to battle the Wizards. The Wizards have been fun to watch with #1 overall pick John Wall running the shoot but they enter the game with a record of just 5-9.

The Wizards have showed some promise with their two young big men and their future superstar point guard but have still struggled and were blown out 116-96 by the Atlanta Hawks Wednesday night. The Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 111-100 Friday night to improve to 11-4.

The game will be shown locally by FSN Florida and nationally by NBA TV. As always, if you can’t watch the game, you can listen on the radio – in English on AM 580 WDBO and in Spanish on AM 1270 WRLZ.

Tip-off from the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. is scheduled for 7:00 pm EST.

Starters:

Washington Wizards

JaVale McGee
Andray Blatche
Kirk Hinrich
Gilbert Arenas
John Wall

Orlando Magic

Dwight Howard
Rashard Lewis
Quentin Richardson
J.J. Redick
Jameer Nelson

Opponent To Watch: John Wall, PG – Who else? Wall had a forgettable debut against the Orlando Magic on opening night, scoring just 14 points on 6-of-19 shooting. Since then, Wall has been fantastic. He’s averaging 18.0 points, 9.1 assists and 2.8 steals per game and even had a triple double (19 points, 13 assists, 10 rebounds) in a win over the Houston Rockets on November 10th. This will be Wall’s third game back since missing four games with a foot injury and with the Wizards not having played since Wednesday, I’d expect Wall’s play to pick back up after scoring just 10 points against the Hawks.

What To Watch For: How the Magic react to a back-to-back. They hosted the Cleveland Cavaliers Friday before immediately having to board a plane to D.C. to play the Wizards. It will also be interesting to see what kind of lineups the Magic use to counter Washington’s three guard lineup of Wall, Gilbert Arenas and Kirk Hinrich -it probably means we won’t see a lot of Rashard Lewis at the 3.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger, co-host of CB Sports Radio from 5-7 pm week days (1420sports.com) and ESPN 1080′s Magic Insider (http://espn1080.com). Subscribe to his RSS feed, add him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter to follow him daily. You can download the HTD app here).