Orlando Magic Playbook: 5 ways the Orlando Magic offense changed after the All-Star Break

Aaron Gordon’s bump

As noted before, the biggest beneficiary of the team’s offensive improvement came from Aaron Gordon. He started gaining an increased offensive advantage over power forwards, using his speed and quickness to create space for shots.

His shot distribution changed as did his effectiveness.

It goes beyond his scoring bump from 11.2 points to 16.4 points per game and his increase in rebounding. Gordon became a much more effective and efficient player — shooting 50.3 percent from the field despite still shooting worse than 30 percent from beyond the arc.

As you can see from the highlights from Gordon’s 30-point game against the Boston Celtics above, Gordon was scoring in a much different way than he was before the All-Star Break. He got out in transition a lot more, where he could get into a rhythm with a one-dribble pull-up. This also helped him create mismatches on the block.

In half-court settings, his proximity to the basket made him a bigger factor on the offensive glass. Here his athleticism can take over and he can scavenge for easy baskets.

In this game, in particular, his attacks were much more decisive. Gordon was far more effective when he attacked quickly rather than trying to probe through multiple dribbles. Being at power forward forced him into fewer of these decisions.

In all, Gordon shot much closer to the basket more often and found a lot more success.

Before the All-Star Break, Gordon shot 185 of his 561 field goal attempts inside of five feet, roughly 33 percent of his field goals. He shot 122 shots (21.7 percent) from 20-24 feet and hit on only 28.7 percent of those shots.

Gordon was spending a lot of time either around the basket or just inside the 3-point line.

After the Break, Gordon took 147 of his 304 field goal attempts within five feet — 48.4 percent of his field goal attempts. He took only 32 shots from 20-24 feet (10.5 percent).

Clearly, Gordon became a much more efficient and aggressive player here.

Take his drives, for instance. Gordon drove the ball to the basket 2.2 times per game before the All-Star Break, shooting 39.4 percent on drives, according to NBA.com’s Player Tracking stats. After the All-Star Break, Gordon had 3.4 drives per game and shot 48.7 percent on those drives.

Gordon upped his game, his efficiency and his aggression. He became more confident with pull-ups and made them. He started to produce. There is hope he can continue to improve (a healthy summer and training camp would help enormously) and take another leap in his game.