One day, not so long ago, Ryan Anderson was crushing teams’ spirits in a Magic uniform. Some day soon, Channing Frye could be used in the same way in pick and pops to burn teams with the 3-pointer, making teams stick to the perimeter and opening things up in the paint and driving lanes.
That day came. That day will come. Tuesday night, that day came against the Magic.
The long slog of an 82-game season started with the Magic in a tight back-and-forth affair (aided by some missed free throws for sure) and then the dam finally broke for New Orleans.
Ryan Anderson was left alone on the wing and drained a 3-pointer. He picked and popped for another. Then drained one in transition. That was nine points in a 45-second span that capped off an 11-0 run to end the third quarter. That was the distance the Pelicans needed. Their interior defense and offensive rebounding guided them to a 101-84 win at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans to kick off the NBA season.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
| Orlando | 84 | 88.2 | 40.5 | 30.8 | 16.2 | 25.0 |
| New Orleans | 101 | 103.4 | 42.6 | 39.4 | 7.3 | 30.7 |
The Magic were able to hang around. They did good things on both ends in stretches.
A look at the raw box score tells you the Magic gave up 40.6 percent shooting. On most nights that would be enough to keep a team in the game. Even when they shoot poorly themselves. This was the question Tobias Harris seemed to pondering after the game.
The reason this game quickly turned into a blowout was because that number was something of a mirage.
New Orleans collected 26 offensive rebounds in the game, many on tip ins, resulting in 32 second chance points. Anthony Davis, Omer Asik and Ryan Anderson were great squeezing their way into space and tipping the ball back toward the rim. Eventually they would break through and score enough to completely stifle any hopes for the Magic to get out and run.
Offense is going to be tough to come by. Especially in a game where the Magic were contending with Davis — nine blocks — and Omer Asik — 17 rebounds and five blocks. There were no easy opportunities in this one.
The Magic also gave up 31 free throw attempts. The Pelicans just made only 15 of them. Those were a lot of points left on the board.
It was a bit of a mirage.
More alarmingly, perhaps, the Magic seemed to struggle with that defensive identity they claimed to have. The defensive pressure was not there, ducking underneath screens or switching entirely. In fact, it was the switching that caused many of the defensive problems and offensive rebounding issues.
New Orleans was able to get dribble penetration and pull Nikola Vucevic away from the post players. That allowed offensive rebound opportunities. The Magic did not play with the same discipline defensively as the preseason. There was more switching and collapsing into the paint. The Pelicans took advantage of the poor rotations and the perimeter players failed to adjust and stop dribble penetration. It became chaos.
And once New Orleans started making 3-pointers at the end of that third quarter, the spirit broke a bit and things got worse.
The Magic are going to struggle offensively. The one thing they cannot do is commit turnovers. They had 18 turnovers. Some were aggressive turnovers from guys just trying to make a play. Others were merely careless. Their 18 turnovers turned into 27 points. There were sequences where the Magic were just making somewhat lazy passes.
This is still a young team. Something good needed to happen. It was just too much of a struggle offensively at the end. Again, it felt like only a matter of time before New Orleans would run away with things.
Anthony Davis is too good — 19 points, 17 rebounds and nine blocks. He ran the floor so well and changed every shot in the paint. The Magic seemed a little hesitant to attack all the way.
Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris remained the team’s only consistent scoring options. Vucevic had 15 points and 23 rebounds. Tobias Harris had a game-high 25 points, scoring relatively efficiently and picking his spots to drive and score in secondary transition.
The Magic though just could not get enough from everyone else. The offense had a good flow for some stretches with players moving and working in sync. Things bogged down when the game slowed down and the team relied heavily on pick and rolls to create offensive movement. The Magic just do not have that go-to player yet. They need some fluidity on offense.
And they need to get out on the break more.
Even entering half-court sets, the Magic seemed to bring the ball up slowly. This is not how the Magic are going to win. It has to start with getting stops and collecting rebounds. The first part happened, but was not complete without the second part.
That one big run came and the Magic could not muster anything to keep up.