Orlando Magic learn it won’t be easy in first two games
The Orlando Magic played their first two preseason games to get a brief look at their team. It was far from perfect and growing will be a challenge.
The Orlando Magic began practice Saturday after a two-day break and watched tape. It was a deconstruction of a disappointing and disheartening effort Wednesday in Cleveland.
The Magic were not expecting to be world beaters by the second preseason game. They were not going to implement any special wrinkles to their gameplan to try to contain LeBron James. Frank Vogel admitted Saturday that James will pick apart any shell defense — which he did.
What was concerning though was the Magic struggled to respond to that initial punch. They trailed by 26 points at halftime and got thoroughly beaten. It was a game that looked like last year’s games against the Cleveland Cavaliers where the Magic were beaten and bruised early and often.
It gave the Magic the opportunity to learn some hard truths on tape. The first part of their first practice upon their return was spent reviewing what went wrong — the good and the bad.
“It didn’t show us everything, but it showed us some stuff that we have to work on,” Nikola Vucevic said. “We’re not happy with how we played in Cleveland. Although it was just a preseason game, that’s not how you want to play. I thought we didn’t put enough of an effort. Some stuff was related to Xs and Os. But most it was just us not making the plays we need to especially against a team like that.
“Maybe it can be a good thing for us to lose that way so we understand where we are at and we have a lot of things to work on.”
The Magic did not necessarily like what they saw. And several veteran players let them know — from Serge Ibaka to Jeff Green to D.J. Augustin. They then got to work.
The first two preseason games were hard to judge. The Magic were without three starters in Serge Ibaka, Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton. They got all three back on the court when they returned to practice Saturday.
It is difficult to draw too many conclusions from those first two games because of that. And also because it was the first two preseason games. The idea is for the team to get better continually.
Jeff Green said the focus coming out of the first two preseason games was to get everyone back and acclimated into the team. The Magic are still integrating a lot of new concepts and a lot of new players. The hope is getting everyone back on the same page and building that chemistry will start bringing things in the right direction.
Perhaps a poor effort could put some things into perspective and reinforce the work the Magic want to do.
That bounce back was noticeable after reviewing the tape.
“The good news is everyone wants to get better,” Ibaka said. “Everybody wants to help. That’s where we’re going to keep working on it, we’re going to keep watching tape, we’re going to keep trying to get better in practice. That’s how good teams do it.”
Vogel said he spent much of the first two games looking at different combinations and different lineups. Obviously without a full roster at his disposal, the combinations he could try were a bit limited.
It did give Vogel a chance to look at a Nikola Vucevic–Bismack Biyombo combination. It is a unit that, admittedly, can only be used sparingly as the team learned on the road trip.
The Magic are going through the growing pains and learning how to get better. Their new teammates and their new schemes are still becoming second nature.
The hope is Wednesday will be better than the first two games as they continue to grow.
“This team is hungry and eager to get over that hump and become a playoff team,” Vogel said. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and it’s going to take a lot of hard times. Getting through tough times, it’s not always going to be easy for us. We’ve got to push through that to achieve our goals.”
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The nearly week of practice will give the Magic a chance to continue building their conditioning — an always evolving process through October, Vogel said — and hopefully take a big step forward in the next preseason game.