Big move up NBA Power Rankings in Week 4 for Houston Rockets
By Phil Watson
38. . 6-7. Previous: . Orlando Magic. 13. team
Last week: Beat Philadelphia 112-97, beat San Antonio 111-109, beat Washington 125-121
This week: Wednesday at Toronto, Saturday at Indiana
The Orlando Magic calmed some nerves around central Florida last week with three straight wins, matching their total through the first three weeks. Overall, Orlando has won four of its last five.
They have been helped by Nikola Vucevic starting to break out of an early-season slump. In Sunday’s win over the Wizards, Vucevic scored a season-high 30 points, matched a season-best with 17 rebounds and dished out six assists while shooting 11-of-14 from the floor. The 2019 NBA All-Star also made 3-of-4 from 3-point range.
For the week, Vooch put up 21.7 points, 14.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.3 blocks in 34.4 minutes per game, shooting 54.2 percent overall and hitting 6-of-9 from range. The strong performance over the last three games — well, two of the last three games; Vucevic was 4-for-16 in the win over the Spurs — has his shooting up to 46.1 percent overall and 32.6 from deep for the season.
https://twitter.com/OrlandoMagic/status/1195355972543418371
One concern is young forward Jonathan Isaac, who was out for a second straight game Sunday with a sprained right ankle sustained during Thursday’s unveiling of the orange-trimmed uniforms in the tweet above, per Josh Robbins of The Athletic.
Jonathan Isaac will not play tonight against San Antonio because he has a sprained ankle. Isaac rolled the ankle during the Magic’s City Edition uniform unveiling event Thursday night, a team official said.
— Josh Robbins (@JoshuaBRobbins) November 15, 2019
If nothing else, the incident proves the point that a player is at risk of injury literally every time he puts the uniform on.
. 8-4. Previous: . Toronto Raptors. 12. team. 81
Last week: Lost at Clippers 98-88, won at Portland 114-106, lost at Dallas 110-102
This week: Monday vs. Charlotte, Wednesday vs. Orlando, Saturday at Atlanta
Missing Kyle Lowry to a fractured left thumb and Serge Ibaka due to a sprained right ankle, the Toronto Raptors struggled a bit last week, going 1-2 to close out their five-game road swing through the Western Conference.
That came after Toronto had won six of its previous seven games.
Fred VanVleet continues to carry the load — literally — as the former undrafted free agent logged 41.5 minutes per game last week, raising his season average to 38.4 minutes a night, second-highest in the NBA.
In the three games last week, VanVleet averaged 22.7 points, 7.3 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, shooting 44.4 percent overall and hitting 9-of-23 from deep (39.1 percent). VanVleet has not played less than 30 minutes in his 12 appearances thus far this season.