LeBron James’ star power overwhelms Orlando Magic
The Orlando Magic could do very little to defend against LeBron James at the end of the day. And in a game needing perfection, that made the difference.
156. Final. 108. 38. 123
The Orlando Magic’s 123-108 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers did not feature a young team standing in shawk and awe over the play of superstars LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The oohs and aahs of the crowd might have made you think that though as James picked apart the Magic’s defense for 13 assists, many leading to 3-pointers and the Cavaliers shot 18 of 35 from beyond the arc.
The Cavaliers are quite capable of taking apart any team when their offense is dialed in. Even when it is not, LeBron James will put you in that position on his own. He IS LeBron James.
Sometimes, all a team can do is watch the maestro at work, no matter how many different coverages and defensive schemes they throw at him.
“He’s a spectacular player,” James Borrego said. “He has tremendous talent. He’s a tremendous basketball player, and he’s got weapons around him. And when that combination is playing well and they are shooting the ball so well, they’re a very dangerous team, and we saw that tonight. They were fantastic. They shot it very well, they found the open man. We tried multiple coverages and multiple bodies. Give Cleveland credit, they played very well.”
This is something Orlando understood entering the game, having been victim to some of James’ best games of the season already this year.
They tried about everything you can do defensively on him, hedging screens hard or blitzing him on the pick and roll. They tried hanging back to catch him and cut off his penetration. They tried switching the screen, leaving Nikola Vucevic isolated on James on a few occasions.
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No matter what they tried, James was able to get down hill and cause the defense to collapse around him. With Orlando’s focus on the defensive end being about protecting the paint, they conceded the 3-pointer by digging into the paint too much. James was able to pick them apart easily for that reason.
And the Magic just do not have someone capable of drawing that much attention and that much focus from a defense.
Orlando put up one of the best offensive performances of the year. The 108 points Orlando scored was the second most scored in a loss this year and the 112.6 offensive rating was the second most posted in a loss as well. The Magic had one of their best offensive games in a while, only the win vs. the Kings topped tonight’s offensive performance under James Borrego.
The Magic had things rolling on their end from the start as they collected offensive rebounds off misses, moved the ball efficiently and found open seams to attack. On almost any other night, the Magic did enough to win.
“I thought we went right back at them,” Tobias Harris said. “That’s kind of what you have to do versus a team like that. You can’t get discouraged off of missed threes. I thought we did a pretty good job going back at them. Obviously, it was not enough tonight.”
The Magic certainly went right back at them, getting advantages on the offensive glass and from the foul line. They even forced more turnovers and converted off those miscues. Orlando had the right mindset if not the 48-minute high-level of execution on the offensive end to withstand Cleveland’s punch.
Borrego would point to the defense on most occasions. That has been his focus and the identity he has tried to instill in his team from the get go. For the most part, that transformation has occurred.
The team did not quite execute what he wanted Sunday night for the most part. There were stretches where the team got stops and cut into the lead.
But in actuality, the Cavaliers took control of the game on an 11-0 burst to start the second quarter. Borrego went to his usual second unit while the Cavaliers kept LeBron James in the game. The second quarter started:
- LeBron James assist to James Jones for a 3
- Channing Frye missed 3-pointer
- Iman Shumpert offensive rebound and-1 layup
- Luke Ridnour missed 3-pointer
- Matthew Dellavedova 3-pointer
- Maurice Harkless missed lay up
- LeBron James layup (timeout Magic)
That is how a two-point quarter-ending lead turns into a nine-point deficit. And it all happened within a span of two minutes to open the quarter. That is the kind of offensive firepower the Cavaliers have within them. And how much attention on James or one star player can spread to the rest of the team.
For the Magic to beat a team like the Cavaliers, they have to be just about perfect. And, even then, having players like James and Irving are going to demand something a little bit more. They can finish games on their own in dramatic ways too — the Magic have been victim to that against the Heat the last two years.
Orlando still lacks that star power to make defenses completely surround a player. The Magic had solid balance against the Cavaliers. Tobias Harris had 24 points on 9-for-15 shooting. Nikola Vucevic scored 22 points. Victor Oladipo overcame his rough start for 25 points on 8-for-21 shooting and a 49.2 percent true shooting percentage.
It just was not enough.
“We were really trying to protect the paint,” Elfrid Payton said. “For the most part we were able to do that tonight. They were able to get hot. They made a lot of 3s and it was tough on us.”
The NBA is still a league of stars and the defense gravitates to them and around them. And they can still shake the earth, no matter what you are trying to do defensively.
The game, as it sometimes does with the Cavaliers, became all about James.
“He just draws you in and kicks it out,” Aaron Gordon said of James. “Kyrie had one in front of our bench and it looked like he was practicing. It was a H-O-R-S-E shot. He got to get his fingers right, his feet down, just shot it, lined it up, and it went in.”