Comeback Effort Falls Short As Abysmal Start Dooms Magic
By Zach Palmer
The Orlando Magic nearly erased a 26-point deficit. But how the team fell behind by 26 points said a lot more than the comeback.
You reap what you sow.
This young Orlando Magic team was reminded of that lesson tonight as their abysmal effort in the first three quarters ended up being too big of a deficit to climb as they fell to the Brooklyn Nets 100-98.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn | 100 | 102.1 | 61.8 | 12.1 | 21.6 | 25.0 |
| Orlando | 98 | 98.2 | 48.3 | 16.3 | 10.2 | 22.7 |
Mason Plumlee (BKN) — 18 pts., 9 rebs; Brook Lopez & Deron Williams (BKN) — 16 pts.
Victor Oladipo (ORL) — 17 pts.; Elfrid Payton (ORL) — 16 pts., 10 assts., 9 rebs.
The Magic played with little defensive effort and played what was likely their worst offensive half of the season tonight. The Magic were able to cut the Nets 26 point lead to three behind a lineup of Elfrid Payton and four shooters. In the end however the Magic were plagued by their normal late-game troubles and could not manage to get good looks late to send the game to OT. Ben Gordon and Evan Fournier, who hit big shots earlier in the fourth quarter, could not hit big shots that would have tied the game.
Let us get one thing straight about this comeback: There was not anything to be proud of.
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As a Magic fan and observer the Magic need to win these games. The Brooklyn Nets are not a particularly talented team and they certainly do not possess noticeably more talent than Orlando does. To top this all of the Magic once again made fools of themselves in front of their home crowd even earning them some boos in the process.
The beginning of all of Orlando’s problems tonight, and seemingly ever since Nikola Vucevic came back starts on the offensive end of the court. The Magic do not have nearly enough movement offensively.
When Victor Oladipo has the ball,the ball itself does not move. His possessions routinely end with one or zero passes total which takes a toll on his teammates morale as well as leading to an offense that is much easier to defend.
When Elfrid Payton or Evan Fournier run the offense the Magic usually run the same stale set. The ball handler has the ball at the top of the arc, an Orlando big sets a screen and Oladipo or Fournier are forced to create offense without much movement on the perimeter.
The Magic offense is just too predictable.
With skilled big men like Kyle O’Quinn and Nikola Vucevic who excel at shooting from mid-range and passing the Magic would benefit immensely from running more sets from the high post.
The most unheralded part of Orlando’s offensive struggles is how this young Magic team lets their lack of offensive success dictate their effort levels.
Orlando has done an extremely poor job of helping the helper in the paint and overall just contesting shots in the paint. This was exhibited tonight as Brooklyn shot nearly 57 percent from the field including 50 points in the paint.
The other glaring area of concern is Orlando’s rebounding. The Magic have lost the rebounding battle in 11 straight games including losing 45-37 tonight.
This comes back to helping the helper. A lot of the rebounds Orlando gives up have been offensive rebounds, which come from Orlando’s bigs trying to stop penetration but nobody is rotating over to help the big on the glass, thus leaving nobody to box the opposing big man out.
It led to Mason Plumlee having a big game for the Nets. At the end of the day, Orlando dropped a winnable game with self-inflicted wounds the team could not recover from.
Game Notes:
- Devyn Marble played 20 minutes in his first game back from his D-League assignment. In order for Marble to play Maurice Harkless was made inactive.
- The lineup that Orlando made their big push with gave you a small glimpse of what Orlando envisioned when they signed Channing Frye. The guards were able to penetrate easily with the middle of the floor empty.
- Jacque Vaughn allowed Evan Fournier to play point guard today. Quite frankly it was a disaster. Fournier just does not possess the ball handling ability needed to put pressure on the defense.
- Brooklyn turned the ball over 22 times tonight. The Nets had seven in the first quarter leading to seven Magic points and eight in the fourth quarter leading to 12 points. These turnovers were the only reason the Magic had a chance in this game.
- There was an extremely questionable no call on the last play of the game. Jarrett Jack grabbed Ben Gordon’s arm and shoved him away to get open. Jack then threw the ball into the air and barely got enough hang time on it for time to expire.
Rookie Report:
Elfrid Payton: Payton was outstanding tonight. If there was one player on this team that never showed an ounce of quit it was him. Payton played furious defense, in particular during the third quarter where he single handedly cut Brooklyn’s lead to single digits by forcing multiple turnovers.
In the fourth quarter, Payton stood out big time. With the Magic employing four shooters Payton was able to easily beat his man off the dribble and break down the defense. Payton racked up multiple uncontested dunks which in turn forced Brooklyn to sag off of Orlando’s shooters. When Brooklyn sagged off to help on Payton he hit them for open three point attempts. Payton ended with a near triple double tallying 16 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds and three steals.
Devyn Marble: With the first extended minutes of his NBA career Marble did not accomplish much on the stat sheet. With that said, he was key in Orlando’s fourth quarter surge thanks to his defense. This was a point Jacque Vaughn noted in his postgame remarks (and a reason why he might have the coach’s trust more than Maurice Harkless).
Offensively, Marble looked pretty intimidated. He looked afraid to shoot the jumper and was looking for somebody to pass to as soon possible. Off the ball he did not move around much which made him a bit of liability. Defensively however, Marble did quite a good job. He did a great job of contesting shots and helping on defense as well as crashing the boards with Orlando’s smaller unit. I wonder if Orlando deactivating Maurice Harkless means they have asked Marble to fill his role as the defense and dirty work wing.