The Orlando Magic have struggled this year keeping opponents off the free throw line. They came to roost as the Sacramento Kings paraded to the line.
The Orlando Magic have had a free throw problem for a while now. It has been a constant problem throughout the season. The Magic are 28th in the league in free throw attempt rate — at 21.8 percent — and give up the sixth highest free throw attempt rate at 31.2 percent.
The issue giving up free throw attempts is nothing new. The Magic have given up a lot of free throw attempts throughout this early season. The team has had to answer a lot of questions about why it cannot seem to get to the line despite a plethora of shot attempts at the rim.
It is something that does not make a ton of sense in the end. But it has not mattered much. The Magic defense continues to be one of the top defenses in the league and the Magic sat at .500.
Then there is Saturday’s game.
The Magic defense held the Kings to 38.3 percent shooting, helping counteract some of the Magic’s own poor offense and shooting. And every time it seemed Orlando might make a run. There goes the whistle.
Orlando’s defense might have been good at forcing tough shots. But the moments where the team lacked discipline or fouled cost it in the end. The Kings made the Magic pay making 28 of 31 free throws.
All 28 of those makes helped the Kings take absolute control of the game in a 97-91 win at Amway Center on Saturday.
The Magic? They shot just six of eight from the foul line. Tobias Harris had four of those eight free throw attempts.
“You have to be frustrated when the other team is parading to the foul line and you are not.” –Scott Skiles
“You have to be frustrated when the other team is parading to the foul line and you are not,” Skiles said. “But we need to take personal responsibility for that, for why we are not getting to the line. It’s not the referee’s fault. A referee can miss a call during the course of the game, but it’s something we are very poor at. We have to look at that from a personnel standpoint, a style of play standpoint, anything that we can try.”
The Magic had their frustrations with the officials throughout the game.
Tobias Harris picked up a technical foul in the first quarter after he said he reacted to an elbow he received. Evan Fournier picked up a technical foul in the fourth quarter after he was called for an offensive foul.
Those were the highlights of team frustration with the referees on Saturday night. But those were not the plays that defined the game.
Instead it was the way the Magic hacked or bit on pump fakes. The Kings earned every bit of their 31 free throw attempts. The team cannot control officials. They can control their effort and attention to detail.
The fouling is more a product of a lack of concentration defensively.
“We do have some habits we’re trying to clean up where we feel like we have a guy driving and we have him in pretty good position and just as he goes to shoot, we’ve lacked the discipline to be vertical and sometimes we chop down,” Skiles said. “We were playing against a team that was predominately switching for most of the game. The scarier thing is we only shot eight free throws ourselves while they were doing that. Professional perimeter players, when bigger players are switching onto you, you have to take advantage of that. And we didn’t do a good job of that at all.”
The problem is truly two-pronged. It is not just the Magic failing to stop themselves from fouling, it is also a problem of the Magic not getting to the foul line themselves.
It is not for a lack of trying.
Orlando got 44 field goal attempts in the paint Saturday and 41 of those shots came right at the rim in the restricted area. The Magic were getting there and struggling to score. The struggle would greatly decrease if they could get to the line.
The Kings, using a more traditional lineup with Willie Cauley-Stein or Kosta Koufos in the game next to DeMarcus Cousins, were switching many of their screens. It made it more difficult for the Magic to get into the lane and crack the defense off the dribble.
Of course, it also should have been an opportunity. An opportunity to take defenders off the dribble and attack the basket again. There were mismatches to exploit and the Magic struggled to do so.
“We should have attacked more, that’s true,” Evan Fournier said. “We have to give them some credit too. They did a pretty good job defensively. We obviously don’t have hte respect, but we’re going to earn it.”
The free throw deficit and futility though remains a major weakness for this team.
The Magic give up an average of 7.1 free throw attempts more than they attempt. They have attempted more free throws than their opponents just once all season. Orlando has given up 30 free throw attempts now four times this year (although two came in overtime games).
More from Orlando Magic Daily
- 2023 Orlando Magic Playoff Lessons: Philadelphia 76ers can’t seem to avoid conflict
- 5 worst starters of the Orlando Magic’s Shaquille O’Neal era
- Orlando Magic FIBA World Cup: Franz Wagner can be a star if he takes it
- Orlando Magic are going to find out who they are in 2024
- 2024 Orlando Magic Player Outlook: Moe Wagner is the spark off of the bench
This again puts a lot of pressure on the Magic to make shots and execute offensively. It puts pressure on the defense to get more stops.
The Magic have not been the picture of consistency this year. The offense has had its struggles — the team shoots a 46.9 percent effective field goal percentage, 24th in the league. These little things add up and can be part of the difference of winning and losing games.
“I think that’s an issue we have had a lot this season,” Nikola Vucevic said. “We have to try to do a better job defending without fouling. For us, we have to try to get to the rim as much as possible, try to draw fouls and make it easier for us.”
This is what it is all about — making things a little bit easier for this team.
Saturday night, the Magic made things all the more difficult. The offense was not playing well, the defense was doing OK. The free throws added to the complications.
It is not something that should be repeated if this team wants to be successful.