Orlando Magic paying in 3-pointers for paint trade off
The Orlando Magic’s defense has seen a dramatic improvement since James Borrego took over. There is still a hole though — beyond the 3-point line.
The Atlanta Hawks are a team that moves the ball quickly and crisply. It zips from side to side and finds the open man or the open crease to drive in.
Jeff Teague essentially sealed the game by getting the ball on a reversal, blowing past Elfrid Payton as he tried to close down at the 3-point line. He gave a shoulder fake to try to draw a foul and looped in a floater that bounced off the front rim and in.
That is what making 14 of 31 3-pointers will do for a game. That is what making your first eight shots in a game, including three 3-pointers, will do to a defense.
Then again, this is kind of the bet the Magic have made of late. Defend the paint at all costs, and live with teams making 3-pointers.
The Hawks still managed 38 points in the paint, but it was the perimeter shooting that really opened things up for them. After all, the Hawks did open up the game 19-3 thanks to their ability to find open shooters and make them.
This was the tradeoff the Magic have decided to make defensively. They will sacrifice giving up 3-point attempts, betting it is a lower percentage shot, and focus on protecting the paint. It is a strategy that has produced solid defensive results — the Hawks’ 101.8 offensive rating was still below their season average and just the fourth time a team has had an offensive rating of 100 or more since James Borrego took over.
What has not been unusual is the Magic giving up a ton of 3-point attempts. The Hawks took 31 of their 81 field goal attempts from beyond the arc for an unusually high 38.3 percent 3-point attempt rate. The Heat and Sixers both posted about 28.0 percent of their shots from beyond the arc in the previous two games. Only two teams registered a 3-point attempt rate lower than 20 percent since Borrego took over.
These games are not the most amount of 3-pointers the Magic have given up this season. The Hawks had a game earlier this year against the Magic when they took 33.8 percent of their field goal attempts from beyond the Magic. Orlando as a team has 10 other games where the team gives up so many 3-point attempts.
What is different now is that the paint has been locked down and the 3-pointer is the gaping hole. Teams are starting to drain them.
The Hawks made 45.2 percent of their 3-pointers on Friday. Since Borrego took over, opponents are shooting just 30.5 percent from beyond the arc. The gamble to give up 3-pointers has paid off for Orlando.
It did not against the Heat — Henry Walker made a critical 3-pointer late as the Heat seemed to awaken from a perimeter slumber — and it certainly did not against the Hawks.
Some nights, the Magic are going to succumb to a team that gets hot from beyond the arc. There is sometimes nothing you can do.
Until the Magic learn to close out better, or rotate more efficiently behind screen and rolls as the team is still switching on many perimeter pick and rolls, this is going to be the key issue for the Magic defensively. It is the next step in the team’s defensive evolution to get the team to go from packing the paint to getting out to the 3-point line and back in.
Borrego has not had the time to implement everything he wants to yet. The lack of practice time has short circuited those efforts, as Borrego seemed to admit after the team’s loss to Miami on Wednesday.
There are basic concepts that have clearly sunk in, but getting to that next level is about defending both and covering for each other. Again, the defense has gotten better. There is no denying this.
The defense itself was the thing that kept the Magic in the game against the Hawks. After giving up 23 points in a little more than five minutes, the Hawks scored only five points in the final seven. Atlanta trailed at halftime thanks to the defensive effort cutting out the paint. The 3-pointers could not fall forever.
They fell again in the third quarter when Atlanta took over — 5 for 8 in the third quarter. This is how things are going to go. The Magic are banking that teams will not make enough 3-pointers to make them pay in the long term. Not until they learn to expand and contract their defense in and out of the paint as a unit.
The risk has paid off for the most part. Friday it bit them. Atlanta ended up to be too good of a team for Orlando to get away with leaving 3-point shooters open for too long.