The Orlando Magic lost Elfrid Payton in the second quarter. Their offense still did not miss a beat with a guard platoon featuring the team’s versatility.
The Orlando Magic have talked about versatility since this rebuild began. Victor Oladipo was never a shooting guard, always a guard. Aaron Gordon did not have a position, he was just a forward.
Everyone was just a basketball player asked to do whatever they could and the pieces would fit.
Elfrid Payton always had a defined role. He was always going to be a point guard. His poor jumper almost guaranteed that. Having him off the ball is a bad thing, and he is so gifted at creating for others when he is on the ball, it made too much sense to keep him going.
That stability in the lineup was lost midway through the second quarter. Payton will not admit it, but he played the second half Friday against Portland and the entire game Sunday against Atlanta with a pretty sore left ankle. It got rolled on Friday in the second quarter and he was clearly playing in pain.
Payton could no longer go after the first half of Orlando’s 107-99 win over the New York Knicks on Monday. He left the game after playing 9:53, scoring five points and dishing out three assists.
Payton has been crucial this year, maturing dramatically and keeping the offense composed. Even without a consistent jumper, he is able to control the pace of games and attack the paint to draw the defense in and kickstart the Magic’s offense. It seems in those sticky moments, Payton helps unlock the team.
The Magic really have no traditional point guard options behind him either. Victor Oladipo and Mario Hezonja have split time at point guard for the last week. Both have good ball handling abilities and work better with the ball in their hands, but neither are considered traditional point guards.
Shabazz Napier falls in that same category. He is much more of a scorer, looking to create for himself to create for others, rather than someone who necessarily works exclusively for others.
All three players have had their issues running the team and getting them consistently into their sets. No one does it like Payton can.
Then again, these are very confident players, and they can play at a high level. And when they do, things can get very difficult for the opponent.
Oladipo, Hezonja and Napier each had their moments through Monday’s game running the Magic effectively. Even Evan Fournier took turns directing the Magic.
The maturity as a team and the versatility of its players proved to be one of the more important aspects to the win. Players stepped up and into their roles. And when the Magic really needed points, they turned to their rock in the post in Nikola Vucevic.
Certainly the way Hezonja played in his first stint seemed to breed some confidence. Then Shabazz Napier came in and dealt two assists in 3:09. That gave Napier the start in the second half where he added four more assists for a total of six on the game.
Hezonja made his first four shots, but was calm throughout the game on the ball. Oladipo handled a lot of the ball handling with the two in the game, but both were able to get comfortable running the offense and distribute the ball.
Hezonja looked perhaps the most comfortable he has looked in any game so far this season. He scored 11 points and dished out three assists, making five of eight shots from the floor. He began stepping into jumpers and confidently firing away. Even some ill-advised one. But he had the confidence and look like they would go in this night.
He generally made the right decisions with the ball as did the Magic’s other point guard options on this evening.
Oladipo did exactly what the lineup change was supposed to do. It gave him freedom to attack and he did that for much of the second half after struggling some finding his own shot in the first. He finished with 12 points, two assists on 4-for-7 shooting.
These are not any extraordinarily gaudy statistics. But they were emblematic of how the Magic had to pull together. Even without Payton for much of the game, Orlando had an offensive rating greater than 110 points per 100 possessions.
The Magic offense continued to hum along.
And even in crunch time, the team got into sets well with Oladipo running the show. Or with Evan Fournier running the show.
It was Fournier during an individual 5-0 run that put the game away and gave Orlando some distance. He read Jerian Grant, the rookie playing point guard for the Knicks down the stretch, and torched him, driving past him for a layup and then juking him for ample space to drain a 3-pointer at the top of the key.
Oladipo’s general unselfishness throughout the game in not looking for his own shot, Hezonja’s still underrated vision and passing game and Napier’s playmaking ability provided enough at the point guard position.
Is that enough for the Magic long term should Payton miss time? Can they do this consistently?
Those are questions for a worst-case scenario.
Next: Orlando Magic offense sharp in 107-99 win over New York Knicks
For Monday night, the Magic’s plans to have a point guard by committee with versatile guards capable of handling the ball and unselfish enough to pass it worked.