The Orlando Magic have found one stat near elite levels in the NBA. The team is one of the best rebounding teams in the league. It is central for them.
Coach Steve Clifford has often talked about the narrow path for the Orlando Magic’s success.
To make the Playoffs, the team has to have a top-10 defense and a top-15 offense. It may not end up being necessary, but those aspirational goals would get them headed in the right direction.
Those were global though. To get there they would have to do certain things.
Playing together and moving the ball would be essential. But a bigger thing was to limit teams to one shot. Orlando’s margin for error was still small on both ends and working on the essential elements of a strong defense — even the most basic thing like securing rebounds — would be essential to success.
Orlando is not a team that can afford too many mistakes or too many missteps. Giving up a second-chance opportunity to an opponent is not necessarily a death wish for the team, but it makes the task that much harder. A second bite at the apple can break the team’s will and put them off balance.
This is all basketball 101. Teams that secure rebounds end defensive possessions successfully. Or at least when they get stops. Even the best defense is easily derailed when a team gives up too many offensive rebounds and second chances.
As the Magic have continued to climb the defensive ratings — currently the 10th best defense in the league giving up 108.0 points per 100 possessions — they can thank their surprisingly strong rebounding for it. Orlando ranks fourth in the league for the entire season in defensive rebound rate, grabbing 74.6 percent of all available defensive rebounds.
Despite some slippage in the last few games, the Magic have been an effective and strong defensive rebounding team all year long. That is a big part of their defensive improvements and one of the key reasons the team is still in the Playoff hunt.
This improvement has been because of a couple of changes.
Steve Clifford is from the Pat Riley school of defense. Part of that philosophy centers on controlling the glass. Their teams tend to focus on controlling the defensive boards first, not getting out in transition and sending more players to the glass. On the offensive end, and this was certainly Stan Van Gundy’s philosophy, it means having more players get back on defense and less players attacking the offensive glass.
This conservative approach limits easy offensive opportunities and allows the defense to get set and regain possession.
This has been part of the shift in strategy that has the Magic climbing the rebound rates. In the last 15 games, the Magic have the top defensive rebound rate in the league, grabbing 76.4 percent of all available defensive rebounds.
Clifford said the team is not leaking out as much and putting an emphasis on the glass and securing rebounds. With the league heading to more spread-out offensive sets with four or five players able to shoot threes, offensive rebounds — especially longer offensive rebounds which are notoriously harder for big men to grab — are easier to get.
To get defensive stops and rebounds, all players have to be involved on the glass. The Magic are simply not a team that can shirk this responsibility because of how narrow the team’s margin for error is on offense.
"“A team like ours, everybody has to come back and rebound,” Clifford said before the Orlando Magic’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves last week. “It’s been an issue. If you look at it, one of the things with all the 4-outs and 5-outs is offensive rebounding has never been a big deal in our league. Now it is. But it makes it so everybody has to rebound. That’s one of the things we are doing a lot better.”"
That proved to be an issue in Thursday’s game against the Timberwolves. Minnesota had 16 offensive rebounds for 24 second-chance points. The Magic still withstood that and got the win.
Since then, they have locked down the defensive glass. Against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Orlando Magic grabbed 76.9 percent of all defensive rebounds. Against the Atlanta Hawks, they had an astounding 88.6 percent defensive rebound rate. And against the New Orleans Pelicans, the Magic grabbed 79.7 percent of available defensive rebounds.
Overall, the Magic give up the fewest second-chance points in the league at 11.0 per game. That is a further sign that game was an outlier and the Magic are one of the better teams at controlling the glass.
That has helped boost the team and helped the team keep games relatively close.
Orlando may still have issues closing out games, but they are putting themselves in position to win more games. Their defense is starting to shape into a stronger form and their rebounding is a big reason for it.
What might be surprising then is how few high-volume rebounders the Magic have.
Nikola Vucevic leads the team with his robust 12.0 rebounds per game. Aaron Gordon is at a solid 7.3 per game (in line with his total from last year). But then it truly becomes a team effort. Jonathan Isaac and Mohamed Bamba are hovering at five rebounds per game and then the other guards will do their part.
That is more and more of a sign of how much rebounding is a collective effort. Orlando needs its forwards in Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac crashing the glass but it also needs that team effort.
That might explain why the Magic limit possessions. They have few fast-break opportunities because they have to commit so much to the glass. Limiting possessions is something the team wants to do because of the team’s lack of scoring.
But Orlando has found some comfort there that they are expanding and tweaking some things elsewhere. Isaiah Briscoe has helped the team pick up its pace a bit. The team is not outright fast-breaking but Isaiah Briscoe certainly forces the issue a bit more and gets the Magic’s second unit into their offense quicker.
Orlando will surely have some more tweaks to come. The Magic are not focused on the offensive glass, but they could add that focus if the offense is struggling, using that to try to get extra opportunities.
But the bedrock for the Magic is still that simple thing of collecting rebounds and controlling the glass. Orlando is not a team that gives up a ton of extra opportunities. And that will give them plenty of chances.