Orlando Magic displaying new offense
The Orlando Magic need to improve their offense as much as their defense and have displayed a much more dynamic offense in two public showings.
The Orlando Magic’s open practice Monday was not entirely a representation of how the Magic practice or how the Magic will play. They still went through their paces and Scott Skiles still pulled guys when they made repeated defensive mistakes. But the intensity of a Scott Skiles practice was not there.
What that did provide, in some respects, was the ability for the Magic to show off a new look offensively.
Defensive stops led to fast break opportunities. The ball zipped around the perimeter quickly, finding someone open (or at least the chance for someone open, the defense was still good enough to stunt a few players into passing up the shot or holding onto the ball some). The shots started to fall — Andrew Nicholson again noticeably hitting a lot of shots in and around the paint and Tobias Harris knocking down 3-pointers.
This new Orlando Magic offense, like the defense, still has some early preseason hiccups to sort out. But there has been undoubted progress on that end and the look for the team has been pretty pleasing.
“We scored 100 points the other night when we were terrible from three,” coach Scott Skiles said. “In a game where Channing [Frye], Devyn [Marble] and C.J. [Watson] are all excellent 3-point shooters and they didn’t shoot the ball well. That’s never going to happen again that they shoot like that. We feel like it’s something that we made a lot of progress. We’re not overdribbling. A few possessions in the other game. We feel like we’re getting better at it. We feel like we are going to be a pretty good ball movement, player movement team.”
The Magic posted a 101.7 offensive rating in that first preseason game. They shot 6 for 26 from beyond the arc with Channing Frye missing all three of his attempts, C.J. Watson making just one of his five attempts and Marble missing on all five. Skiles, as he mentioned above, does not anticipate that happening again.
Largely those shots came within the flow of an offense that relied heavily on player movement and cutting. It is a much more dynamic offense with a lot more intricacies involved than the offense of the previous three years.
For the last three years, Orlando’s offense has rated near the bottom of the league. In 2013, the Magic were 27th in the league in offensive rating according to NBA.com with a 98.9 rating. In 2014, the team dropped to 29th at 99.3 points per 100 possessions. Last year, the team sat at 27th at 99.6.
As bad as the defense has been for the Magic, the offense also needed tremendous work and a complete revamp too. Adding some shooters would certainly help, but the team needed a total schematic makeover.
One preseason game and an open practice are not going to fix all ills. The Magic should still have moments when they struggle to hit shots and struggle to create offense. That might just be the nature of the talent on the roster. The team has to continue to improve on that end of the floor.
“I think guys are trying to play the right way, moving the ball, cutting hard, setting screens,” said Nikola Vucevic, who participated in the open practice after missing the last few days. “We’re still getting used to it. We’re still learning all the plays and getting adjusted to it. I think so far, we are doing pretty well. We are being unselfish sometimes a little bit too much. In time, we’ll get event better at it. But I think we are doing a good job sharing the ball, moving, cutting, screening, doing what is needed and being unselfish.”
When the team does hit on that movement and cutting hard, it creates a really pleasing style of basketball to watch. And the Magic are sharing the ball and moving it quickly, even against their own pressure defense.
The Magic are still working on improving their spacing and getting to their spots. The team is still learning exactly how Skiles wants things run. Spacing is so important to the offense, Skiles said, because it stretches the defense out and keeps the paint open where the team’s ballahndlers can drive into the paint or cutters can find the open spot. It has helped find Vucevic and Nicholson in the paint on several occasions.
It is an offense that can work well for this team as it has shown already in its few public appearances.
“It is a different offense,” Tobias Harris said. “But at the same time it is going to be on us playing off each other and making the right plays and making the right reads. Hopefully we grasp it quicker and just be able to go out and run with it. It suits our ability and our young guys and the athleticism that we do have.”
Defense might be the mentality the team has to take on, but improving the offense will go a long way toward the Magic accomplishing their goals.
Orlando so far looks like it has something very different but something that can be very successful.