Orlando Magic fail to use defense as their catalyst

The Orlando Magic promised to make defense their catalyst for success this season. Against the Miami Heat in the opener, this foundation let them down.

The Orlando Magic were still struggling with the frustration of a disastrous 5-for-20 shooting in the third quarter. Their supposed identity though continued to let them down. Again and again.

Then a bit of life.

Serge Ibaka rose up to block a shot and ignite a fast break for Evan Fournier. He drew a foul and suddenly, after a lifeless third quarter the Magic had some energy again. They worked to get another stop and the run was slowly coalescing.

And then it was not. As quickly as the Magic seemed to build momentum on defense, they could not keep it going. The offense would not help. Nor would the weakside rotations.

As soon as that energy defensively came and the potential to cut into the Miami Heat’s growing lead in the fourth quarter came, the Heat snuffed it out. The Miami guards would get into the lane and slip the ball to Hassan Whiteside or Willie Reed. The Magic were scrambling, collapsing and fighting and could not get on the same page long enough to make a stand.

The Heat ran roughshod over the Magic’s defense in a 108-96 victory at Amway Center, leaving the Magic’s supposed identity in shambles.

“It’s not OK,” Aaron Gordon said. “It’s unacceptable. It is something that we need to do man to man is guard our player better and understand what we want out of the pick and roll coverages and be clear going into the game.”

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Miami out paced, out spaced and out worked Orlando, leaving their defense fighting to stay above water. And thus leaving their offense without its backstop to generate points. Forced into a half-court game, the Magic played selfish. They were stuck in the mud and unable to get the ball moving to make the Heat’s defense work.

It all combined to remind the Magic just how small their margin for error is each and every game. This is not a team that can show up and play defense. It has to work on it.

Serge Ibaka is not going to be there to erase every mistake. The guards have to contain the perimeter players and keep them out of the paint. Ibaka cannot rely simply on his athleticism to catch up — he got caught flat footed trying to rotate to protect the rim on numerous occasions.

And, most notably, the Magic cannot rely on Bismack Biyombo to clean up everything. Especially when he is not there like he was Wednesday night. Who knows how much of a difference that would have made? It did not matter Wednesday night.

Playing strong defense takes a lot of work, focus and intensity. And that was lacking as the defense fed the offensive malaise and vice versa.

The Magic were lackadaisical. And the Heat made them pay for it time and time again with their intensity, turning offensive struggles into defensive struggles back into offensive struggles and on and on.

“It’s always connected,” Evan Fournier said. “Definitely, they started to play harder. Coach told us at halftime, but we weren’t ready. They started to play more physical, stopped fouling a little bit. Get into our stuff and changed the momentum.

“When you play kind of passive on both ends of the floor, you can’t play hard on defense and passive offensively. It’s always connected.”

The final tallies were not pretty.

The Heat scored 108 points with 74 points coming in the paint. That included 16 offensive rebounds and 23 second-chance points. Miami also added 15 fast-break points.

Miami posted a 108.0 offensive rating for the game. These are not the elite defensive numbers the Magic want.

Their identity is still not fully formed. And the problems snowballed.

As the defense struggled to get stops consistently, they gave up points on those drop offs and dump downs in the paint after a guard broke containment. Orlando was struggling to communicate and slide into the right spots to get stops.

That caused the offense to go up against a set defense playing with bounce and confidence. The Magic’s offense is not exactly the prettiest thing to watch.

And with every missed shot or turnover, the Heat came running back at them before they could get set.

Orlando’s inability to get stops consistently just snowballed as Miami built its lead in the third quarter.

“It’s just concentration, effort mostly,” Nikola Vucevic said. “You’ve got to keep doing it over and over. They are a team that is going to keep driving the ball and keep going at you in the paint. . . . I also think it it comes with trusting each other, which I think will come in time. Building our chemistry on both sides of the floor, that will come as well. I think some possessions the effort wasn’t there against a team like Miami.”

The chemistry hurdle is not an excuse, Nikola Vucevic said. Part of the struggles certainly is that, but he said the effort was not there consistently tonight. It is hard to argue with how the Heat beat the Magic to about every loose ball throughout the night.

It was something they could overcome.

Orlando got knocked off its game and could not live up to that identity the team wants to build.

“We’ll coach the truth in film tomorrow and in practice,” coach Frank Vogel said. “What we did well, we’ll highlight. What we didn’t, we’ll need to work on. We’ll do that this year regardless of the result. Win by 30, lose by 30, win by one, lose by one, you go in and you look at your habits and you highlight your positives and build confidence from that and correct your negatives.”

The good news is that this is just one game. There are 81 more chances to improve. The defense is still a work in progress as is the rest of this team.

Next: Grades: Miami Heat 108, Orlando Magic 96

The Magic though are still pouring and discovering their foundation. The moments of frustration will appear until it is firm.