Orlando Magic gang rebounding has produced mixed results
The Orlando Magic’s leading rebounder through three games is Victor Oladipo. The guards have helped on the glass, but it has hardly been effective early on.
Finishing for the Orlando Magic goes to more than just the final two minutes of the game. Finishing possessions has also proven to be important for the Magic and their growing defense.
Although a failure to finish at the end of the game probably illustrates the problem.
At the end of Wednesday’s season opening game against the Washington Wizards, the Magic held on to a three-point lead with about a minute to play. The Wizards came down the floor in transition and Gary Neal hoisted a transition three.
It missed as Nikola Vucevic did a good job closing out. Elfrid Payton though watched the ball instead of spotting Otto Porter running hard down the baseline. His failure to box out allowed Porter to tip the ball in and cut the lead to one.
It was one of 15 offensive rebounds and two of Washington’s 12 second chance points.
Similar scenarios happened throughout the Magic’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder — 22 for 20 second chance points — and to the Chicago Bulls — 11 for 14 second chance points. The Magic were not finishing their defensive possessions and giving up offensive rebounds at critical moments.
“We’re not rebounding the ball well enough,” Scott Skiles said Saturday after the Magic’s practice. “All team sports are like this, but it’s the timing of when things happen that make things stand out. The [offensive] boards are hurting us at moments when we need the rebound, and we get flat outhustled. Just one possession, we get outworked. It’s not necessarily because size is in the game.
“We need better defensive rebounding from [Nikola Vucevic] and Tobias [Harris] if both guys are going to start for us. You generally don’t want your point guard to have twice as many rebounds as anybody else on your team.”
To this point in the season, the Magic have employed a type of gang rebounding strategy. Victor Oladipo surprisingly leads the team with 9.0 rebounds per game. Elfrid Payton and Evan Fournier grab 4.7 per game early on this season.
Nikola Vucevic is grabbing 8.3 rebounds per game and Tobias Harris is at 7.7 per game.
Team rankings get more normal in terms of rebound rate where Dewayne Dedmon (19.7 percent), Aaron Gordon (14.0 percent) and Nikola Vucevic (12.4 percent) lead the team.
And keep in mind these are all early season statistics too, subject to wild variability game to game.
Still there is no doubt the Magic have struggled to clean up the boards and having Oladipo lead the team in total rebounds is a symptom of some of the struggles and lingering issues defensively — both an encouraging sign he has helped in that area and discouraging sign the post players are not there to grab them.
To this point this year, the Magic rank 29th in the league in defensive rebound rate, grabbing only 68.6 percent of all available defensive rebounds. Their defense has been something of a saving grace, as they have given up only 15.3 second chance points per game on 16.0 offensive rebounds allowed per game. But these are not sustainable trends.
Scott Skiles said after Friday’s game that if the team continued to struggle on the glass, particularly early as it has, he may have to consider going bigger with his starting lineup. He did not want to jump to too many conclusions, but the rebounding situation he said had to be addressed somehow.
Certainly a smaller lineup with Tobias Harris at power forward would put the Magic at something of a rebounding disadvantage.
No matter how good the Magic’s defense has been in spurts, or can be in general, it becomes irrelevant if the team is unable to finish possessions and get going to the other end of the court.
“Everybody just has to check out their man and be a little more scrappy,” Harris said following Friday night’s game. “We need everyone to do that because [Oklahoma City is] a big team, but they also have wings that want to get there and want to get rebounds also.”
With the Magic sporting a smaller lineup with Tobias Harris at power forward, the Magic have to put an added emphasis on rebounding. Oftentimes, Nikola Vucevic has done a good job moving over in rotation to cut off the first attacker, leaving his man exposed for a rebound.
This is where the team’s strong rebounding ability from the guard position has played a role. Oladipo and Payton have done well among guards on the glass with Oladipo leading all guards in rebounds per game and Payton ranking 20th. Oladipo ranks 10th among guards who play more than 15 minutes per game in terms of total rebound rate.
That can obviously be a big boost to a team, although it is not ideal that Oladipo leads the team in rebounding.
It shows though a commitment from everyone on the team to finishing possessions with a rebound and getting the team going back in transition.
“Just finishing defensive possessions with a rebound,” Oladipo said of his mentality grabbing rebounds so far this year. “Wanting to go get a rebound. That’s all I’m doing. Honestly, that’s all we’re doing. When we get rebounds, it’s easier to start our break. There are a lot of big guys in our league that our big guys have to deal with. They need all the help they can get sometimes.”
The Magic have seen that reliance on the guards become inconsistent. As noted, Payton has missed box outs as the guard shave to crash down and deal with taller players.
Orlando’s rebounding early on this season has not been ideal. It is something that will have to change quickly for the Magic to win more consistently.