Orlando Magic turn to regular season confident they are ahead of last year’s pace

The Orlando Magic are looking ahead to the regular season now and they are confident they are on pace to be ready and eclipse last year’s breakthrough.

The Orlando Magic’s preseason felt like a mixed bag.

Undoubtedly, the team set high expectations for itself and fans bought into it after three relatively easy wins. The Magic looked crisp and sharp, picking up it seemed right where they left off from their playoff push.

Those three wins seemed to confirm any talk anybody might have of this team potentially pushing into the top of the Eastern Conference and taking that next step to get out of the first round. The Magic swarmed on defense and moved the ball on offense, using their defense to feed a new fast-break attack.

That all slowed down as the preseason went on. The team suffered injury — most notably to Nikola Vucevic who missed two games — and the offense started to look anemic again. The ball movement stopped. Turnovers piled up and the team struggled to reign in opponents.

In pure preseason fashion, the Magic let leads get a little too out of hand and things did not look so rosy.

In that sense, the preseason finale against the Miami Heat was a mixed bag — a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. That all left fans feeling a bit more uncertain about their team heading into Wednesday’s regular-season opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The team never appeared to have that uncertainty, however. The team always felt like they were on the right track and confident they could clean up their mistakes.

"“We had our ups and downs,” Terrence Ross said after practice Saturday. “We saw what we were good at. We saw what we needed to work on. It was a good measuring stick for what we need to work on.”"

That was the general vibe from the team following its preseason finale.

Evan Fournier brushed aside concerns about turnovers saying that was something the team can control. They can use practice — especially the contact practices the team expects to conduct Sunday and Monday — to get back into rhythm offensively together.

Aaron Gordon, who shot 6 for 38 (15.7 percent) in his final three preseason games after suffering a blow to the jaw in the game against the Atlanta Hawks, brushed aside his own struggles too after the game. He said he was confident he will be ready when the lights go on.

The team, it seems, is serious about getting ready and begin better for the regular season. But nobody was overreacting to the preseason.

"“It’s hard,” coach Steve Clifford said after practice on Saturday. “I thought if you watched the other night, we had stretches of play where everybody played. I don’t really feel like you can fully evaluate where we’re at because we haven’t been healthy.”"

Injuries certainly played a role in the team losing its rhythm — whether it was Aaron Gordon’s brief injury, ankle sprains for Nikola Vucevic and Terrence Ross, Evan Fournier’s back spasms or Wesley Iwundu‘s knee issues — and it prevented the team from getting a clear look at itself for the regular season.

Still, the concerns were plenty.

The team will have to learn how to play without its best players at some point. The Magic had extreme injury luck last year with all six of their top players playing in 75 games or more. The only major injury was Mohamed Bamba‘s leg fracture and Khem Birch more than admirably stepped into the lineup effectively.

The team’s defense was solid for most of the preseason. But turnovers stuck the transition defense in a bind. The team looked generally disorganized in those moments.

The Magic’s rebounding was also poor for much of the preseason. They gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, belying some of their defensive success.

And the Magic’s bench unit struggled to create spacing and consistent offensive push. Orlando still has a lot to sort through and improve upon before the season begins.

As Clifford said before the team’s final preseason game, he wanted to see the Magic look a bit more like themselves. In some respects they did. But the high turnover numbers and poor rebounding are exactly the opposite of who this team is and needs to be.

The preseason then felt like a mixed bag with a lot of really strong moments and encouraging signs mixed with things the team is still working on.

"“We’ve been scoring off our defense,” Clifford said after practice Saturday.“I think that’s been good. Our deflection numbers are much better than they were a year ago. The rebounding stuff especially the last couple games is not nearly what it needs to be.”"

The offense especially was a concern. Orlando posted a 96.6 offensive rating during the preseason. That was the fourth-worst mark among NBA teams. Although, take it with a grain of salt still. The Atlanta Hawks and LA Clippers ranked worse than the Orlando Magic in that category for the preseason and both of those teams have plenty of offensive firepower.

That is what makes it hard to judge anything during the preseason. Everything is a bit off-kilter as teams try to get their work in rather than play as they actually might during the regular season.

The biggest takeaway for the Magic appeared to be on the defensive end. They saw the potential their defense had and how that can generate easy points.

Orlando Magic

At this part of the year, Clifford said defenses are usually ahead of the offense. It is easier to play on instinct on that end as the offensive side gets its timing down. Orlando’s ability and focus to generate more transition points should help the team get a boost offensively.

Whether Orlando can get its half-court offense turned around is the bigger question. The Magic will not survive many games with the high turnover counts they had in the last four games — 79 total in the last four games.

There is plenty of work to do. But the team is still encouraged with where they are at.

"“The half-court offense is one thing we’re going to develop,” Ross said after Saturday’s practice. “It will get better fairly quick because we have the chemistry and we know how each other player. We had a way of playing last year where we were playing pretty well with that. Now we’ve just got to build on that. Even from this time last year, we’re way ahead of where we were. I have confidence in our group that we will figure it out quick.”"

The quiet confidence to brush off any preseason struggles is normal this time of year. The team knows it will have to lock in and play with more focus — again, Clifford’s favorite buzz word is purpose of play — when the games start to count Wednesday.

But they feel they are ahead of where they were last year. And that is a place to build when the games count.