The Orlando Magic have to trust Terrence Ross, for better and sometime worse

The Orlando Magic have ridden with Terrence Ross all season. His inconsistent shooting is starting to hurt, but they must continue to trust him.

Saturday night was Terrence Ross‘ night.

He struggled through three quarters but came alive in the fourth quarter for 16 points against the Indiana Pacers. It turned a deficit for the Orlando Magic into a lead. The Magic scored a monumental victory. Or at least one that felt like a monumental victory at the time.

It was gutsy and gritty and hard fought and surprising.

Terrence Ross was a big part of that. He supercharges the offense when he gets going as one of the few tough shotmakers on the team.

That ability to get going in a hurry is something no one else on the team has. It has endeared him to fans. The Magic become a different team when he gets going. It has happened so many times.

But Sunday was not Ross’ night.

He struggled to find his shot and missed 11 of his 12 field goal, including all six of his 3-pointers. Ross got all the same shots he usually gets, coming around screens on curls and firing with the speed and athleticism that makes him such a powerful weapon.

These are Ross’ shots, but these are still tough shots. And sometimes even the open shots do not go down. The bench relies on him for his scoring and when he does not provide it, the Magic have to scramble to find something.

It narrows an already small margin for error.

And now the pressure is only increasing with the Playoff chase speeding up. The Magic cannot afford any off nights. And at inopportune times, the Magic have gotten two of them.

Ross’ 1-for-12 performance in Sunday’s 107-93 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers came on the heels of his 1-for-10 performance in Tuesday’s 108-103 loss to the New York Knicks. Both games were not entirely on Ross’ offensive struggles — the Magic’s defense was lax in both games as was their overall attention to detail and focus.

But Ross even playing halfway decent would have surely delivered a win.

It was also clear in both games how off Ross was. He was struggling to get himself going in both games and Ross has only one way to get himself out — and that is to shoot more.

How do the Magic now handle Ross when he is having one of those games? Can the Magic survive with Ross struggling to provide anything offensively? That is his main role, after all.

Relying on Ross

The answer is likely situation dependent. But largely, the Magic must continue to trust Ross even when he is struggling. Coach Steve Clifford has to trust his intuition and trust with Terrence Ross.

He clearly believes in him and the kind of impact he can have on a game. And Clifford is not going to let a one- or two-game sample change that trust in him.

Yet, with the pressure increasing, it is easy to let doubt creep in. And as results become a whole lot more important (if they are not already), there might be a time to pull the plug.

Throughout his career, relying on Ross has been a bit of a gamble. He followed up a 50-point effort with a 12-point one. He had not scored more than 30 points again since that infamous game until this year.

This season has been the most inconsistent he has ever been. Yet, now with the spotlight on and the pressure increasing, Ross has struggled and has brought his team down with him.

Undoubtedly, when Ross finds his kindling and starts to catch fire, the Magic become an entirely different team.

Catching fire quickly

Even in those recent strong performances from Ross against the Golden State Warriors and Indiana Pacers, it took Ross a while to get warmed up.

Through three quarters against the Warriors, Ross had just five points on 2-for-8 shooting and 1-for-6 shooting from beyond the arc. He finished the fourth quarter with 11 more points on 3-for-6 shooting (all from three).

Those shots were critical in scoring that upset win — including the attention Ross got to find Aaron Gordon open for a go-ahead 3-pointer.

In Saturday’s win over the Pacers, Ross scored 16 points on 5-for-9 shooting and 2-for-5 shooting from beyond the arc. He had just seven points on 3-for-8 shooting and 1-for-6 from beyond the arc to that point.

Ross’ fourth-quarter lines in those games might be enough for a typical player in a full game. But the Magic obviously rely on Ross for a bit more. There are none of these big victories without Ross’ over-the-top production.

That trust has been built over the course of the entire season. This is a career season for Ross after all, averaging 14.6 points per game on a 52.8 percent effective field goal percentage. The Magic have turned the sixth man role over to him and relied on Ross late in games.

Ross is 32nd in the entire league in fourth-quarter scoring, averaging 5.3 points per game. He is fifth among bench players trailing Lou Williams, Derrick Rose, Montrezl Harrell and Spencer Dinwiddie.

Falling back to his mean

That reliance on Ross is getting tested as he has fallen back to his mean a bit. The knock on Ross throughout his entire career has been his inconsistency. It was never certain whether the team would get an efficient double-digit performance or a 1-for-10 six-point outing.

In the six games since the All-Star Break, Ross is averaging a robust 14.5 points per game (well in line with his average for the season) but shooting 34.1 percent from the floor and 29.5 percent from beyond the arc. He is taking 14.2 field goal attempts per game in that span. His season average is 12.7.

Ross has been a volume shooter this year (he shoots just 42.5 percent from the floor overall with so many 3-pointers mixed in). But now those shots are falling a whole lot less. He has to shoot more to get to his scoring numbers.

And then comes the disastrous games the Magic cannot possibly survive like the one Sunday night unless they are playing a fully focused effort. When Ross cannot find his shot, Orlando often struggles to fill the gaps even against the league’s worst teams.

There are some other options the Magic could explore if it came to that.

Orlando has a starter in Jonathan Isaac sitting on the bench in crunch time for Terrence Ross. And Jonathan Isaac is gaining confidence.

But he certainly does not warp a defense in the way Ross can. Pacers coach Nate McMillan said before Saturday’s game that Terrence Ross is near the top of the scouting report for his team. And he still got loose against one of the best defenses in the league.

Perhaps if this continues for Ross, the Magic could play him his normal minutes and if he is struggling to turn things around early in the fourth quarter turn to that other option. It might be worth exploring if this pattern continues.

But the reality is the Magic have ridden with Ross to this point — more than three-quarters of the way through the season. He has built that trust that he can deliver when needed through that time. No one is about to abandon him.

And with his ability to catch fire quickly, he is still vital to the Magic winning games. When he catches the fire the team can be truly transcendent.

And in that Orlando has to continue to put its faith.