FanHouse JjRedick

Five Things takes a look at five things to watch out for in marquee games with playoff implications.

Intensity. Fire. Desperation. These are the building blocks of an NBA Game 4.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Few NBA big men have really pounded Tim Duncan over the years. Add Dwight Howard to the club: Superman had 24 points on 12 FGAs, 14 rebounds including five monsters on the offensive glass, three assists, two blocks and a steal in San Antonio. Duncan ended up with a good line (18/10/5/3), but Howard's ability to get Orlando some second shots made a big difference.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

The game of the night in Cleveland lived up to the hype ... for one team. Boston watched LeBron James throw up one of the most complete games in recent regular season history: 38 points, seven rebounds, six assists, four steals and three blocks. Those usual weaknesses of LeBron, three-pointers and free throws? The Chosen One shot perfectly from the line (9-for-9) and above 40% (3-for-7) from deep. And all this came in a 15-point win over the champs. G.O.A.T.

North Carolina is one of those programs whose history drops jaws. Just the names of the players that have come through Chapel Hill are amazing. Michael Jordan. James Worthy. Sam Perkins. Billy Cunningham. Phil Ford. Antawn Jamison. Walter Davis. The list goes on.

By the end of the night, none of them will have scored as many points for the Tar Heels than Tyler Hansbrough. Psycho T is just nine points away from passing Ford and become the all-time leading scorer in UNC history. The Tar Heels host Evansville tonight.

When records fall, there are two stories to follow. One is the greatness of the player who is toppling the record. We all know about Hansbrough and what he has meant to the Carolina program. But the second story is about the record itself and who held it.

It is amazing that Ford has kept this record since graduating in 1978. Again, guys like Jordan, Worthy, Perkins, Jamison, Vince Carter and more have came and went since Ford. Sure, most of the best scorers since 1978 have left early for NBA riches (I think that Joseph Forte would have owned the record if he hadn't left after his sophomore season) but that shouldn't diminish the record.

Some big fish have made the trade rumor chum bucket this week, but (the excellent) Third Quarter Collapse points out an earnest offering by Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel. Schmitz said there's interest from the Magic in reacquiring Grant Hill.

Hill, who has one home in Orlando and is renovating another, would embrace a reunion despite feeling the Magic didn't try to keep him after his star-crossed seven-year career ended in 2007. He signed a two-year contract with the Phoenix Suns.

The Magic could trade, say, J.J. Redick for Hill in a transaction that might make sense for both sides.

Most tallied a downgrade as the Magic lost Carlos Arroyo and Keyon Dooling over the summer while picking up Anthony Johnson and Mickael Pietrus. Pietrus, for one, has done well to buoy Orlando's stature. Johnson? Eh. But now the injuries (which avoided Orlando all of 2007-08) come, and things are dicey in the Magic backcourt.

Kyle Hightower of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Pietrus will miss three to five weeks with a torn ligament in his thumb. Keith Bogans broke his thumb last week and hasn't played since. Jameer Nelson has a hip flexor injury, and will be out at least another week. Hedo Turkoglu is your backup point guard (!) and none other than J.J. Redick will start at the two against the Pacers.

Injuries to starters always hurt the team, but this is most fortuitous of circumstances: if Johnson goes down at this point, then rookie combo guard Courtney Lee is getting the start, which isn't good. I don't need to tell you how important Rashard Lewis, Hedo and Dwight Howard are. And hey, you could do worse than Redick off the bench. If there's been one thread through J.J.'s nascent NBA career, it's been a lack of opportunity. Injuries beget opportunities, and Redick probably won't get a better one than he'll see beginning tonight.

Things are tight all over. The economic crisis is causing a torrential downpour of cutbacks and fiscal fat cutting. The NBA is cutting jobs. Playboy is cutting jobs. Everyone is trying to pinch pennies and make reasonable fiscal decisions.

Well. Almost everybody.

Earlier this week, the Magic activated the option on J.J. Redick, the 2006 draft pick who's been stuck on the bench for the last two seasons. Redick had actually requested a trade last season and after no trade was found, just kind of accepted his lot in life. There's been a lot of talk about Stan Van Gundy not liking the young three point specialist's attitude, but after some heady work in preseason, Van Gundy has praised J.J. Redick. Still, there seems to be more pressing needs for the Magic than a 6-4 shooting guard who's biggest contribution in the last two years has been on his blog. Redick can be of help, but is he really the missing piece for Orlando, enough to justify the option?

Elsewhere in the Great Moments in Questionable Small-Market Team Decisions section, the Charlotte Bobcats decided that the Magic were having way too much fun with their little "Let's Extend the White Shooter That Hasn't Been Able To Adjust To The NBA" game and decided to get in on the action.

For most former lottery picks, it's just a formality when a team picks up their fourth-year option. For J.J. Redick, it was a bit of a surprise. Despite playing for a team that attempted the second-most three-pointers in the league last year, the sharp-shooting guard out of Duke has been unable to crack the rotation each of his first two years in Orlando.

Then again, even that may change this year, as Stan Van Gundy told reporters today that if the regular season started today Redick would be in his rotation. Redick is happy to hear that, but he's not taking anything for granted. From Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel:

Said Redick, "I hope he says that on Oct. 29th. He told me that last year in China that I was going to play, but things can change quick in this league. I don't feel like he lied to me on that. I missed the San Antonio game because I hurt my hand and then things changed. I want to be in position on Oct. 29th to play. That's the goal."

Like he said, he was supposedly in line for playing time last year but fell completely by the wayside, playing in fewer games and fewer minutes per game than he did as a rookie under Brian Hill. But despite it all, he obviously has a fan in GM Otis Smith, who not only refused to part with Redick after the guard requested a trade last December but obviously still thinks enough of him to guarantee his $2.8 million salary for 2009-10.

Has JJ Redick received a fair shake? You can make a case both ways. On the one hand, he's appeared in just 76 games over the last two years, playing fewer minutes this past season (just 8.6 per) than his first. It's not often that former lottery picks are denied a chance to prove their worth on the court, so in that respect you can say he's been a victim of circumstance.

On the other hand, two separate coaching staffs have watched him play in practice and come to the same conclusion. No one doubts his deadly range, but the fear is that he'd give up even more points than he scores.

Not everyone agrees that he's destined to be a sieve on defense, though; David Thorpe, basketball trainer and ESPN.com analyst, made a strong case for Redick in an interview with David Friedman of The Biz of Basketball, excerpted after the jump.

Notes from a trip to the NBA Playoffs.

When I entered Orlando's locker room before tonight's game, Rashard Lewis and J.J. Redick were watching a couple of ESPN analysts on TV talking about Game 1. The talking heads mentioned Lewis' 553 three-point attempts this year, a figure that shocked Redick.

"Did you lead the league in attempts?" asked Redick.

"No, I was somewhere in the top five," Lewis repiled.

He's selling himself short: he was second only to Jason Richardson (599). In fact, the Magic set an NBA record by making at least five threes in every regular season game this year, and then extended that streak in all five games of the first round only to make just a single shot from long distance in Game 1 against the Pistons. I asked Lewis if we can expect to see more three pointers the rest of the series, as well as whether his back-and-forth with Theo Ratliff might start another rap feud like the LeBron/Jay-Z vs. DeShawn/Soulja Boy.

Matt Watson: JJ was just talking about the number of threes that you guys usually put up. Is that something that you guys want to get back to this game?

Rashard Lewis: It's helped us have the successful season that we've had because Dwight demands so much attention down low he's going to draw double teams and we got to knock down open shots in order to open it up for him.