5 takeaways for the 2020 season from rewatching Orlando Magic’s playoff series
Game 2: Drawing Fouls
An area that is undoubtedly a weakness for the Orlando Magic remains their inability to draw fouls and get to the line. The team again rated near the bottom of the league in free throw attempts per game (last at 19.2 attempts per game) and free throw rate (29th at 21.6 percent).
The Magic have had an issue getting to the foul line ever since Dwight Howard left the team. It has been a constant and repeated issue for the team.
Offensive struggles do not correlate with low free throw rates — the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets are ranked just ahead of the Orlando Magic in free throw rate. It is not essential for offensive success.
But the team does not have a dominant offensive threat. There is no Nikola Jokic or Kyrie Irving generating good shots or creating for others.
Orlando’s offense is a collaborative struggle to create good looks. The ball has to touch the paint and kick out to the shooters, hoping that the penetration will have collapsed the defense to create good looks and rotation and drive opportunities.
The inability to get to the line makes scoring more difficult because so much rests on what the Magic are perhaps worst at — creating off the dribble and relying heavily on pick and rolls and Nikola Vucevic’s mid-range jump shooting.
Surprisingly though, free throws are the only thing really keeping the Magic in this series in a lot of ways. Orlando posted a 26.7 free throw rate in the playoffs, far above their regular-season average.
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In Game 2, Orlando shot 16 free throws in the first half alone. That is nearly the total they would shoot in an entire game. It was the only thing keeping that game close Orlando finished that game with 24 free throw attempts and lost by 29 points.
The same happened in Game 4. Orlando got Kawhi Leonard in foul trouble in the first half and that helped them keep that game close despite their own turnovers and mistakes.
How were these fouls created? That is a fair question.
The Raptors came into the series with the intent of playing physical, especially with Vucevic. They were working to make the Magic uncomfortable and were willing to give away a few fouls to get that point across and get the Magic hesitant with their attacks and their shots. They aimed to increase the pressure and break the offense.
That all worked.
But the only thing keeping Orlando’s offense afloat for long stretches of the playoffs was the Magic’s ability to get to the foul line.
The question moving forward is whether Orlando can get to the foul line more. Increasing their free throw attempts by even four or five per game (two or three more trips) could have major effects for the team’s offense. That is the difference between finishing in the bottom third of the league and getting to the middle.
If Orlando can find a way to keep up that aggression and draw fouls against a defense that is not elite like Toronto’s, then the team could see an offensive revival.