Rafer Alston suspended

Well, it's official. No hand-ringing here, everyone knew Rafer Alston was going to be suspended -- still a little upset with the timing... 5:30, it took you guys that long?

Alston did an open hand slap to the back of Eddie House's head touching off some jawing and drawing double technical fouls in last night's Game Two blowout. Stan Van Gundy made the right move and sat Alston down for the rest of the game.

It was an instance of Alston losing his cool and he got what he deserved. This is certainly not the way Orlando wants to display its toughness, but it is how they did last night.

This does mean that Anthony Johnson will get the start and we all know how that might end up. Johnson has really struggled with speedy point guards and Rajon Rondo was running circles around Alston, a much better defender.

That means, expect Courtney Lee to be rushed back into the lineup to gurad Rondo in Game Two. I would almost say, he is going to start for Alston and Johnson will come off the bench. We will see where Stan Van Gundy goes with that.

Again, we saw how that went in the regular season and the results were not encouraging.

The bottom line is: if Orlando plays hard in Game Three, it still has a chance to win. The Magic showed some great fight without Howard and I expect the same kind of things to happen in Game Three. There is fight in this team, even if they have not shown it lately.