The Orlando Magic continued their losing ways in Detroit. They seemed to lack energy on the defensive end and couldn’t stop the Pistons offense.
The Orlando Magic had fought their way back from an early 18-point deficit. The early lack of energy was pushed to the wayside as the team found some strong play from its bench and cut the lead down to four at one point and to nine at halftime.
Whether Orlando could make a comeback would be reliant on what the team’s starters could give it in the early moments of the third quarter. The tone for the rest of the game could be set in this moment.
The tone that was set was not the one the Magic wanted.
As seemed to happen so many times, Brandon Jennings failed to get over a screen that was not particularly strong, leaving Dewayne Dedmon and the defense behind him a pickle. Dedmon was forced to come over to help on Reggie Jackson. That allowed Andre Drummond an easy path to the basket, and no one rotated over to protect the paint.
Drummond slammed the ball home emphatically in what became something of a theme in the second half. The Pistons were going to manhandle the Magic defense.
With Nikola Vucevic out once again for the Orlando Magic, the Detroit Pistons dominated the Orlando Magic from start to finish, continuing the Magic’s free fall in the Eastern Conference and NBA standings.
Detroit blew Orlando away from the opening tip and opened a 25-10 lead in the first 7:34 of the game.
Some solid scoring by Elfrid Payton, Jason Smith and Mario Hezonja off the bench allowed the Magic to crawl back into it and keep within striking distance during the second and third quarters. The Magic cut the lead to four late in the second quarter, but the Pistons were able to extend the lead back out to nine before halftime.
However, the Magic just could not finish the comeback. Detroit took full control in the fourth quarter to finish with a 118-102 win.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando | 102 | 107.0 | 43.9 | 32.1 | 6.3 | 19.4 |
| Detroit | 118 | 120.4 | 60.6 | 25.0 | 16.3 | 31.3 |
Elfrid Payton (ORL) — 20 pts., 10 rebs., 10 assts.; Aaron Gordon (ORL) — 15 pts.
Andre Drummond (DET) — 30 pts., 14 rebs.; Tobias Harris (DET) — 18 pts.
The story of this game was the sluggish defensive performance by the Magic, currently 16h in the league in defensive rating. They finished the game allowing 120.4 points per 100 possessions, which is worse than the season average of every team in the league, and about 11 points worse than the average of the worst defensive team in the league.
The Pistons scored 30 points in the third quarter, preventing the Magic from cutting into the deficit at all despite the Magic also scoring 30 points. There were just no stops to be found.
Detroit drivers got into the paint way too easily, and the team scored 58 points in the paint.
Not only did the Pistons get easy baskets inside, but the penetration also opened up a lot of 3-pointers, as they went 11 for 24 from downtown, about 11 percentage points better than their season average.
Detroit got to the line 25 times and hit 21 of them, and they also shot about 54 percent from the field.
Detroit entered the game with the 16th-ranked offense, and had a 120.4 offensive rating for the game, much better than their season average of 103. They were getting into the lane and dishing out quickly with the Magic defense too late to close out or chase them off the line.
A lot of the perimeter defense issues seemed based on a lack of effort.
Offensively, Payton and Smith gave the team a spark and scored 20 and 12 points respectively. Payton was able to attack the basket at ease, and that opened up jumpers for Smith.
Payton finished with a triple double of 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, becoming the first Magic player to record a triple double as a reserve since Brian Shaw in December 1995.
Evan Fournier also added 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting.
The Magic attacked the glass fairly well, finishing with 17 offensive rebounds. Payton had five offensive rebounds and Aaron Gordon had six of his 11 rebounds on the offensive end.
The offense was not a problem for the Magic, who had an offensive rating of 107 tonight, which is better than their season average by about 5.6 points. That has been a theme it seems for a while. The offense hums along fine it just does not get the stops for it to matter.
In order to inspire confidence for next season, Orlando needs to improve its perimeter defense and pick and roll coverage. Until then teams like Detroit will carve Orlando up and give little hope for any kind of comeback, allowing Orlando to do nothing more but play out the string.