Orlando Magic’s offensive problems start with pace and tempo

The Orlando Magic were buried deep in a hole in the fourth quarter.

The Washington Wizards had buried the team in a barrage of 3-pointers, including a quick burst from Kyle Kuzma. The Magic simply were not able to get anything going. Open threes would not fall when they did move the ball. It was like running in mud.

Coach Jamahl Mosley switched his team to a zone defense to mix things up and try to cut into the deficit. And almost immediately the tempo changed.

The Magic were able to create some turnovers and deflections and get out and run. That picked up the tempo. The ball moved to the corner and Franz Wagner caught the defense sleeping to get through the lane for a thunderous jam. Cole Anthony started pulling up in rhythm.

There was a general flow to the game again.

Orlando was able to take a 25-point deficit and quickly cut it down to 17 and eventually down to its final margin of 12 points, a 104-92 loss to Washington Saturday at Amway Center. Things seemed to have a rhythm and flow to them.

That, of course, was not how most of the night went. Most of the night the team stagnated and struggled to get anything going. The team just played slow.

The Orlando Magic’s biggest issue remains their offense and building the force and pressure to stay on the attack.

The Magic’s biggest problem remains their offense. At times unable to hit open shots even off of good ball movement and too often stuck in the mud, playing without that necessary pace or tempo to make teams think and sweat.

Too often, the Magic just go silent for too long and are unable to regain their rhythm before the bleeding becomes too much.

"“I think we just made a lot of boneheaded mistakes,” Mo Bamba said after Saturday’s loss. “R.J. [Hampton] brought up a good point in the locker room, it’s not even a thing of learning each other’s tendencies. We know what each other want to do out there and what we like to do out there. It’s a matter of playing to not only your strengths but your teammates’ strengths. Overall there are just so many little things that go into winning a basketball game that we just failed to do.”"

There was a rhythm and a flow to the game that just seemed off. The kind of flow that had the team stuck in the mud for much of the game. The kind of mud and lack of rhythm that causes even good shots to fall off.

Bamba struggled as much as anyone, scoring 14 points on 6-for-17 shooting with just two 3-pointers in nine attempts. Like in Wednesday’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets, the Orlando Magic got plenty of open looks. But the team just did not seem to hit them or seem entirely confident.

The kind of shooting split Bamba had was not abnormal for the rest of the team.

Orlando as a group shot 33.7-percent and 13 for 40 (32.5-percent) from beyond the arc. The team still tallied 21 assists on 31 field goal makes, suggesting the team was still its most successful when the ball moved.

Cole Anthony was an icy 4 for 16 from the floor. Franz Wagner was only 2 for 11 as his hot shooting to start the season has cooled off considerably.  Terrence Ross was 3 for 9 even as he continues to find his rhtyhm.

The bottom line, the Magic struggled to make shots. And they allowed it to affect everything they did as they tried harder and harder to get themselves out of the hole.

It started with a 20-0 run in the first and second quarters that flipped the game on its head.

No matter when that happens in a game, it is hard to climb back from that. And even though the Magic played some strong defense — a 108.3 defensive rating is the fourth time in five games the team has held an opponent under 110 points per 100 possessions.

Orlando just needs the offense to put the pieces together and maintain its rhythm.

"“I think the big portion of it is to continue to tell our guys whether the shots are going in or not, we have to continue to rely on the defensive side of the floor,” coach Jamahl Mosley said after Saturday’s game. “Getting stops in order to get out and run to create easy baskets. So they went on that run, we didn’t string a couple of stops together. It’s a game of runs and they have to continue to know that and understand that to not hang their heads and continue to push and get easy baskets after we get stops.”"

Mosley said he felt the team got some good looks. But the team still has to be confident to step up and knock them down. The team was able to get into the paint and struggled to finish — 26 points on 13-for-39 shooting in the paint.

Still, there is a rhythm to an offense. And even with good shots, if the team falls out of this rhythm it can lead to misses. Orlando’s offense had that feeling of working out of rhythm where everything was a struggle.

And that made it tough for the Magic to climb out.

"“Shots weren’t going in,” Anthony said after Saturday’s game. “That’s discouraging to a lot of people. Seeing shots you work on every day not go in, it hurts. We’ve just got to grow up, deal with it. It’s basketball, sometimes shots are not going to fall. We’ve got to stay mentally tough and can’t let the shots not falling affect every other aspect of our game.”"

Anthony said he felt the team let the Wizards throw the first punch. He lamented how the team did not respect their opponent enough to play with the urgency they would later play in the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the team played with the energy and push to overcome poor shooting. Orlando ended up outscoring Washington 33-22, even making up a shooting disadvantage thanks to some forced turnovers and trips to the line.

They created their own opportunities and played as the aggressor. That seems to be a key difference for the team.

Anthony put a lot of that blame on himself. He sets the pace for the team and he blamed himself for bringing the ball up too slowly — at 18 seconds rather than 21 seconds. He put the blame on himself for turnovers and poor shot selection.

That rhythm and that tempo were a constant reminder for him. It was a constant lifeblood for the offense that it was missing.

What is increasingly clear is that it is easy to tell by sight whether the Magic’s offense is working.

When the team is playing with rhythm and pace, it can work and create the type of rhythm shots modern offenses create. When it feels like it is moving slowly and struggling to move the ball, it does not matter how good the shots are, they are out of rhythm.

Shots certainly create confidence. And the team still goes with how it shoots, especially early. The team still lets mistakes compound too much.

That is characteristic of a young team. But the one thing they need to keep doing a better job of is finding and sticking with their rhythm and flow.