Value of Magic’s Aaron Gordon Seen as Kawhi Leonard Slow Cooks Magic

Rebounding; Big Man rotations?

Another key was that Orlando win the battle of the boards, and the teams split rebounds 41 apiece. Since the Magic rank 28th in the league in rebounding, this is a nice sign. Nikola Vucevic and Harris did great jobs at boxing out Duncan and Diaw.

Diaw had just two boards while Duncan had his characteristic 10 boards. Combined with his 26 points on 11-for-17 shooting, we all realized that Duncan is not going to be shut down by the likes of Tobias Harris or even Vucevic (who matched up extensively with Duncan on the blocks).

Which brings to one last point here: Kyle O’Quinn once again mysteriously got six minutes in the game. As the Magic’s strongest interior player, he would have been a great match against Diaw at the center spot and allow the Magic to keep a bigger player (Harris as it would be) on Leonard.

The three-guard rotation worked well offensively, but the result was that Leonard had a huge game on the other end.  The positive here was not enough to combat the negative, because the Spurs offense runs well regardless of the unit on the court.

First off, Leonard has the ability to score both off the dribble and on backdoor cuts. Adding to that, is that the Magic have been poor recently at mitigating the off-ball movement of opposing wing players, and tonight was no exception.

Next: Nikola Vucevic vs. Tim Duncan