The Orlando Magic have had trouble early on in games. They have trailed at halftime in 11 games this year, but managed to go 6-5 in those games. Although the Magic have often been able to use their superior talent to come back and win these games, that is something they cannot count on doing that against the NBA’s elite.
On Christmas day against a swarming, suffocating Boston Celtics defense, the Magic played an awful second quarter and fell behind by 11 points in the first half. Although the Magic played a pretty good second half, they never got closer than three.
Against the other legitimate Eastern Conference contender, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Magic played no defense in the first quarter, fell behind early and couldn’t recover as the Cavaliers cruised to an easy win.
Turnovers and a lack of energy on both ends of the court have been Orlando’s main problems. Foul trouble (mainly when Howard picks up two early fouls) has also plagued the Magic.
Magic Head Coach Stan Van Gundy has taken noticed and does not want to let this trend to continue.
"“We just haven’t had good fist halves. We haven’t been good in the first quarter and then our second unit hasn’t been real good in the second quarter either. We try to tweak it a little bit, hard to tell tonight because of the foul trouble. We didn’t really get into a rotation at all in the first half, a lot better in the second half clearly. But I’m concerned with the way we start games, we never jump on anybody. And obviously, our second quarters haven’t been a lot better, we’re always fighting from behind, or you know, a least a little bit behind at halftime so we just try to change that up.”"
He proved this by tinkering with Wednesday night’s lineup in an attempt to have better energy to start the game. Matt Barnes is usually a great source of energy, but it didn’t help the Magic get off to a quicker start like they hoped to. Van Gundy talked about it after the game.
"“Yeah, well it didn’t end up doing us any good. I don’t think it will do a whole lot to their minutes necessarily. I’m just trying to change who they play with a little bit.”"
Van Gundy commented that Orlando’s second unit hasn’t helped matters either. It was more of the same Wednesday night. Orlando was outscored by the same amount (four) in both the first and second quarters. Orlando’s bench accounted for just 16 first half points, but wound up finishing the game with 53 points, led by Pietrus’ 15 and Jason Williams’ 16 points and 7 assists. Marcin Gortat also chipped in 9 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Williams commented about Orlando’s lack of energy in Wednesday night’s game and talked matching their opponent’s energy level.
"“I think in the first half, we didn’t play with any energy. It seemed like the same thing when we played up there against those guys in their place. They came out and played with a lot more energy and got a lot of points in the paint in the first half. Second half, I think we held them to 10 points in the paint, which is big for us.”"
What Orlando needs to do, is match or exceed their opponent’s energy level from the start.
Dwight Howard offered a much more simple answer than the other players when I asked him if he could pinpoint why Orlando struggles early in games.
"“Sometimes teams hit shots and we don’t. It happens that way. We come down and we might take a good shot, but we miss it. The other team hits a couple shots and we’re down big.”"
Later on, Howard talked about Orlando’s first half problems outside of shooting and told me how the Magic could correct those problems.
"“I think we just got to really focus in on just slowing down and not turning the ball over, especially early in the game. And once we do that, teams won’t have a chance to run out and get easy baskets and get into a flow like Milwaukee did earlier tonight (Wednesday).”"
It seems like the Magic don’t really play well unless they have a sense of urgency. It seemed like about halfway through the third quarter on Wednesday night the Magic realized that they might actually lose the game and flipped the switch to on. They took better care of the ball, had better ball movement, avoided fouls and had a high energy level. If the Magic want to win a championship this year, they are going to have to start playing entire games this way.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)