Bet on Basketball – 5 Important Questions – Atlanta Hawks vs Orlando Magic

A pair of divisional rivals will duke it out starting on Tuesday night at Amway Arena in a best of seven NBA playoff betting affair between the Atlanta Hawks and the Orlando Magic.

These teams are very familiar with each other, facing off four times a year as members of the Southeast Division. Orlando took three of the four in the regular season, but BetOnline Sportsbook asks these five questions that will determine who will win this NBA playoff betting series.

NBA Playoff Odds

Atlanta Hawks +500

Orlando Magic -800

1: Can Dwight Howard stay out of foul trouble? Perhaps the better question is whether or not he’ll keep from getting frustrated. Charlotte continuously threw body after body at the man they call "Superman" in Orlando, which annoyed the heck out of the big guy, causing him to pick up a ton of cheap fouls. HC Stan Van Gundy needs to keep Howard involved more in the offense to keep him happy, while Atlanta will have to find more men than it normally uses to send at him.

2: Are the Hawks going to have enough depth to win this series? Van Gundy has no problem calling on any combination of about nine players at any given moment to pick up a win. Atlanta only has six. That depth is going to become a major issue, especially if Howard can dish out some punishment and get a number of the Hawks’ bigs into foul trouble.

3: Can Jameer Nelson be the main scoring threat for Orlando again? Probably not. Nelson looked like a man shot out of a cannon at times against Charlotte, averaging over 23 points per game and having absolutely tremendous first quarters in Games 1 and 3. Though everyone in the Sunshine State has been waiting for Nelson to emerge as a real superstar, this is probably still nothing more than a flash in the pan for a man that averaged just 12.6 points per game in the regular season.

4: Is Atlanta really capable of taking the next step? From the point that HC Mike Goodson took over the Hawks, they’ve done nothing but take a meteoric rise from the depths of the NBA into being a contender. Last season was the furthest that this team survived in the playoffs since the Dominique Wilkins days. A couple of wins in this series will probably ultimately suit the city of Atlanta, but this is a tough mountain to climb to reach the Eastern Conference semifinals against arguably one of the two best teams in the NBA.

5: Bottom Line: Who will win this playoff series? Orlando is just playing too well right now to be beaten four times out of seven by a team like the Hawks that just played a brutal seven game series. No, it won’t be as easy for the Magic in Round 2 as it was in Round 1, but Atlanta is the decided underdog in this series for a reason. Look for Orlando to dispose of the Hawks in six games.

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