The Orlando Magic’s trip to the playoffs exposed plenty of weaknesses for the big stage. They are weaknesses the team will still struggle to address.
The NBA Playoffs are a test that really only one team passes.
As exciting as everyone gets for making the playoffs and the energy that flows through the building, the playoffs are built on failure. Fifteen teams lose and one team wins. Almost every successful team ends their season with a loss and a bitter taste in their mouth.
The difference between a seven-game series and the grind of the regular season is the attention to detail required to win four out of seven games. A series allows a team to hone in on specific weaknesses and find ways to exploit it. It is a chess match and a cat-and-mouse game.
Championships can turn on single shots and the random bounce of a ball. That is how small the margin is between success and failure. But even there, it can become clear what a team’s weakness is.
The Orlando Magic are certainly standing at a crossroads.
They built something real in the regular season that was more than their 22-9 run to make the playoffs. They played at an elite level in that run to make up for their struggles finding the right rotation and their identity early in the season.
The Magic believe they have established their foundation and they can hit the ground running next season to improve their standing.
But their weaknesses were still apparent. And the playoffs exposed them plainly for the world to see.
It was clear the Magic did not have enough shooting to space the floor and relieve pressure for Nikola Vucevic. It was clear the Magic lacked solid perimeter creation to generate that offense. And even defensively it was clear the Magic were still in need of taking things up to the next level.
There were at least a few myths about the Magic in the regular season. They lacked a true star that could step up in the playoffs. They lacked consistent outside 3-point shooting. And they were not truly an elite defense.
The playoffs exposed there was at least some truth to these statements, no matter how the Magic covered them up in the regular season.
What is not clear is how the Magic addressed any of these weaknesses and whether, outside of experience, this team will be ready to address those issues.
Search for Star Power
Nikola Vucevic remains at the center of a lot of these questions.
The Magic gave Vucevic a four-year, $100 million deal ensuring they kept their All-Star player. And he was absolutely an All-Star and one of the elite big men in the league in 2019. He averaged 20.8 points per game and 12.0 rebounds per game with a 51.8 percent field goal percentage during the regular season.
But the Toronto Raptors bottled him up and the rest of the offense sank with him.
In the playoffs, Vucevic averaged only 11.2 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game while shooting 36.2 percent from the floor. Without Vucevic’s consistent production, the rest of the team floundered.
It was not like the Magic was a strong offensive team to begin with. And so losing out on Vucevic’s production hurt that much more.
Orlando was 22nd in the league in offensive rating for the season, scoring 108.2 points per 100 possessions. During the playoff push, the Magic were eighth posting 112.5 points per 100 possessions.
During the playoffs, they sank to 95.8 points per 100 possessions on a horrid 45.1 percent effective field goal percentage. It all started with Vucevic’s struggles.
The Raptors were able to use Marc Gasol to bully him out of his spots on the post. But they also were able to shut out any outlet for Vucevic to dish the ball.
The whole offense revolved around Vucevic and the Raptors shut him out.
Orlando Magic
The playoffs are a point where star players step up their game to meet the challenge of specified game plans. Orlando’s star did not rise to that occasion. Vucevic surely looks forward to getting a second chance and some redemption.
It did not help that most of the other players on the Magic also struggled to shoot.
Evan Fournier, already having a poor shooting season, was even worse in the postseason. He shot 23.5 percent from beyond the arc in the playoffs. He was not alone. The Magic went ice cold and struggled to find much offensive traction.
Orlando can become a more reputable 3-point shooting team. After all, the Magic finished last year 11th in 3-point field goal percentage at 35.6 percent (and 15th in attempts at 32.1 per game). Orlando was not shy about shooting 3-pointers last year and was at least moderately effective at it.
The Raptors still did not respect the Magic’s 3-point shooting. And their best shooters — especially Fournier — could not make the Raptors pay for their doubling. There was no reason to change their strategy if the Magic were not going to make them pay.
But if Vucevic is not the guy who else might be?
Aaron Gordon led the team in scoring that series with 15.2 points per game and 7.2 rebounds per game. His best efforts came in Game 4 when he scored 25 points on 10-for-17 shooting. He took over the game in the third quarter and brought Orlando back into that game.
Aaron Gordon struggled to assert himself in that series. Orlando was probably asking for him to do more. He could be the player that steps up in that regard.
It may not have mattered much with how well the Raptors played.
Rising up on defense
The poor offense hurt the team’s defense a lot too.
The Orlando Magic gave up 111.5 points per 100 possessions in the postseason. That was in part thanks to their unusually high 16.3 percent turnover rate. Only the Philadelphia 76ers were worse in the postseason. And the Sixers also faced off against the Raptors.
But nothing killed the Magic’s defense quite like the star power the Magic clearly lacked on offense. While Nikola Vucevic — or anyone else, for that matter — was unable to raise his game to another level, Kawhi Leonard certainly was.
Even with Aaron Gordon’s best defensive efforts, Kawhi Leonard torched the Magic to the tune of 27.8 points per game on a 63.3 percent effective field goal percentage.
A lot of Orlando’s regular-season success against Toronto came from Jonathan Isaac shutting out Pascal Siakam. That certainly did not happen in the series as Siakam busted out for 22.6 points per game on a 57.7 percent effective field goal percentage.
The Magic definitely did some things to bother them and made them work for a lot of those points. Those players earned those points. But coach Nick Nurse also figure out ways to get them open and they made plays to break down the defense.
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The Magic’s 111.5 defensive rating would have ranked 22nd in the regular season. That is not good, but hardly a disaster. It was the defensive rating taken with the anemic offense that turned the series into a rout.
As coach Steve Clifford said throughout the series, he hoped his team was going to make it more of a series. And the team’s inconsistent defensive effort hurt that effort.
The Magic can still count themselves a strong defensive team. Taking out the blowout loss in Game 5, Orlando gave up a more respectable but still not good 110.6 points per 100 possessions. But they are still a team that has to improve.
In the playoffs, matchups matter more than consistency with rotations. And the Raptors were able to pound the Magic inside and use their physicality to upend the Magic. Especially at the end of games when Terrence Ross played for Jonathan Isaac.
Orlando’s defense did not rise to the occasion. Gordon and Isaac made things hard for Siakam and Leonard, but they were still able to beat the defense.
The biggest weakness
The Playoffs exposed perhaps the biggest weakness for the team in a very stark way. The Orlando Magic had no perimeter players who were able to create offense off the dribble.
Much of the team’s Game 1 success came from D.J. Augustin beating Kyle Lowry off the dribble and getting into the lane. D.J. Augustin scored 19 of his 25 points in the first half of that game. Then the Toronto Raptors put the bigger Danny Green on him and locked him out of the game, minus his five critical points late in the fourth quarter.
Essentially throughout that first-round series, the Raptors bet they could swarm and react to Nikola Vucevic in the post and lockdown D.J. Augustin to keep the team out of the paint. They were not concerned about anyone else forcing rotations or beating their defense off the dribble.
That is a weakness the team still have not addressed overtly.
The Raptors dared Evan Fournier to be the guy to beat them off the dribble. He could not step up to the challenge.
Aaron Gordon had his opportunities, but it took him a while to assert himself. When he did in the third quarter of Game 4, the Magic found some offensive traction. It was a bit too little too late and Gordon had to attack Leonard, which is never easy.
Nugg Love
The lack of perimeter creation is essential to playoff basketball. With defenses loading up to stop specific actions, the playoffs become as much about will as anything else. Players have to have the skills to win their one-on-one matchups and force the defense to rotate and change.
Teams have to force adjustments to cover up weaknesses. The Magic simply did not have someone who could do that. The Raptors made one key adjustment to cut off Augustin’s dribble penetration and the Magic could not adjust.
The problem is there are few answers on the roster to fix these weaknesses.
The Magic certainly hope that Markelle Fultz can be a player who can hit tough shots off the dribble or drive into the lane and cause the defense to collapse. But it is hard to count on him for much when there is no timetable for his return.
Aaron Gordon is another player who could take on more responsibility on the ball. He proved he could do some of that throughout the playoffs and in his 2018 season. But Gordon scaled back his aggression considerably last year, focusing more on his defense and playmaking.
The Magic could experiment with giving him more freedom on the ball after he showed a lot of on-ball poise last year.
There is still the hope too that Jonathan Isaac can be a bit more aggressive and solid on the ball. As there is for Evan Fournier, who proved himself an improved playmaker off the dribble.
All these are possibilities, but nobody is forcing the defense to load up on them. Whether any of these guys can work better off the dribble is a complete mystery at this point. It is just as likely the Magic operate the same way offensively next year.
Unless the team can get much more efficient and effective with its cutting and screening and run a more motion-based offense, the team will still have all of these problems.
The same flaws
The bad part about the team not making many changes this offseason is that the group has all the same weaknesses and flaws.
The Orlando Magic will still be seeking a player who can take players off the dribble and attack the basket. It could be Markelle Fultz or Aaron Gordon taking on that mantle. But that is still unclear whether they can.
And it is still unclear whether the Magic will be able to step up their game the next time they are in the playoffs. The experience of this playoff run should help the team be more prepared for that stage the next time around.
Internal development from players like Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac could give the team an edge it did not have last year when both looked a bit overwhelmed with the stage.
It also did not help the Orlando Magic played the eventual champion Toronto Raptors. That was not an easy matchup even though Orlando played well against Toronto in the regular season.
The playoffs are clearly a different animal. And now that the Magic have a taste of the postseason, their development has to have an eye on performing well at that level.
But like so much about this team, that is a mystery no one can answer until they get back there. And there is a lot of work to do between now and that point.
The Magic are still a flawed team. While they certainly could be a team that takes a leap and competes for homecourt advantage, the group as we now know it still has many of the same flaws that cost them in the playoffs.