The Orlando Magic’s offense has struggled to start the season. It is one of the larger concerns. There is confidence though things will begin to turn.
Evan Fournier drove the lane as he has done a million times. The Orlando Magic were desperately trying to get their freshly re-signed shooting guard going. He had not been able to get his offensive game going. Not at the efficiency the Magic need from the position.
He drove the lane, flipped the ball up . . . and defying all logic and ability the shot rimmed out. It has been that kind of start for Evan Fournier.
“I’m missing a lot of easy shots right now,” Fournier said before Thursday’s game. “I’m getting the looks I want. Against Philly I was missing layups, open shots. Stuff I have to make. I’m comfortable, I just have to make the shot now.”
It has been that kind of start for the Magic offensively. A start that has only shown signs of subsiding in brief moments.
Or in the deluge of a performance like Fournier had Thursday night. Fournier scored 29 points on 10-for-15 shooting, including 3 for 7 from beyond the arc.
Entering Thursday’s game, Fournier was averaging 16.8 points per game through four games this season, but is shooting a career-worst 40.6 percent from the floor overall, 31.8 percent from beyond the arc and 46.1 percent effective field goal percentage. Even his free throw percentage has dropped to 66.7 percent.
It is still incredibly early. Fournier is a veteran player and so it is a fair expectation that these numbers will regress to his mean. He will undoubtedly bounce back. Thursday’s game brought those numbers to 19.2 points per game, 45.6 percent shooting and 34.6 percent from beyond the arc.
But Fournier’s early struggles are emblematic of the Magic’s offensive struggles early on in the season.
The Magic were shooting a league-worst 40.8 percent from the field entering Thursday’s game against the Sacramento Kings (their 45.2 percent shooting brought that up to 41.7 percent, the third worst in the league). They are 23rd in offensive rating, scoring 98.4 points per 100 possessions.
To say the Magic are struggling to execute on offense is perhaps an understatement. The team is not scoring at a rate that will allow them to get their defense set and make things harder for their opponents.
“We get better shots when we get stops defensively,” Fournier said. “Half court is tough. NBA defense, guys with shot blockers, it’s tough. When we get a stop and run in transition, EP is touching the ball and everyone is touching it, it makes the job easier.”
That is what the Magic did so well in the win over the Sacramento Kings. Orlando had 14 fast-break points and scored 13 points off 14 Kings turnovers. They turned stops into chances to get up the floor and find mismatches or get into their offense quicker.
Coach Frank Vogel said the offense will improve with better ball movement, making open shots and the team’s increasing familiarity. It is still clearly a work in progress. And almost certainly the team is getting that comfort slowly but surely.
The Magic are doing a little bit better in transition. They have scored 13.9 percent of their points on fast breaks (12th in the league). Orlando has taken to getting out in transition.
Elfrid Payton has been one of the better finishers in transition too, accounting for 1.33 points per possession in transition and shooting 68.8 percent from the floor entering Thursday’s game, according to NBA.com Player Tracking stats.
His ability to get out in transition and get to the basket to score has been a big boost to the team. Elfrid Payton, despite all his shooting struggles, is averaging 14.8 points per game entering Thursday’s game. A little less than half of that is coming in transition (7.0 points per game).
Payton’s assists are steady too at 6.5 per game with 12.8 potential assists per game entering Thursday’s game.
This is all with an offense that is struggling to create shots consistently and is still working to get to know one another.
“We’re still learning the offense,” D.J. Augustin said before Thursday’s game. “We’re learning to flow together. We’re learning new positions. We’re trying to learn each other and keep the offense flowing.”
If there was a positive sign it came in the third quarter against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday.
There the Magic trailed by 14 points at the half in a game players described after the fact as a must-win game. They had to find a way to dig in deep and gut out the win.
Orlando came out of the halftime locker room to score 41 points, making their first 11 shots. They followed that up with perhaps their best defensive quarter of the half. Their offense brought the confidence to dig the game out defensively.
The Magic matched that effort by coming alive in the second quarter Thursday to take firm control of the game behind 3-point shooting from D.J. Augustin and Jeff Green. That strong offensive effort continued throughout the rest of the game, until things got ugly again in the fourth quarter.
The team has shown its capability of rounding into form — a 41-point quarter and a 53-point half against the Miami Heat show the team’s offensive capabilities. But it will still take some work to break through and reach consistency.
This is an important time to grow together in practice. Things will come together on the offensive end just as they need to on defense.
The first step to doing anything is staying committed on defense. The next step is simply making shots.
For Fournier, when the Magic do get him open, he is at least making them — 54.0 percent on open shots heading into Thursday’s game, according to NBA.com. There is no reason to go completely away from what they are doing. They just need to execute better.
The offense will come from that.
After all, Fournier still got the ball late and hit the runner that tied the game, banking it in to a shocked Wells Fargo Center crowd. His confidence is not wavering.
“I’m very confident,” Fournier said. “I don’t have a problem with that. Every year you have a stretch of games where you can’t hit a free throw. I like the looks I’m getting. Starting tonight, it’s going to be better. You have to remain confident and do the right thing.”
Next: Offense needed to boost the defense
Those words proved to be prophetic for himself and the Magic’s offense.