Late in the fourth quarter of the Orlando Magic’s 103-92 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cole Anthony drove the basket and appeared to be fouled going up for a layup. Nothing was called and play continued, but Anthony stayed on the floor.
Anthony, being the tough guy that he is, slowly got up and finished the game as Orlando limped to the finish trying to keep its head above water and remain competitive in a game that already seemed too far out of reach.
Limped might be the operative term here.
Orlando is already the walking wounded — two years straight as the team with the most games lost to injury in the league and working hard on a third straight year early on this season — with three rotation guards on the injured list.
That hit to Anthony may well have added a fourth.
Cole Anthony will be out indefinitely with an oblique injury. His injury leaves the team without a healthy point guard and will make it hard to evaluate this young Orlando Magic team for some time.
The Magic announced Thursday that Cole Anthony will be out indefinitely with an internal oblique muscle injury. His return to play will depend on how he responds to rehabilitation and treatment.
INJURY UPDATE:
— Orlando Magic PR (@Magic_PR) October 27, 2022
Following last night’s game at Cleveland, @OrlandoMagic guard Cole Anthony underwent imaging, which confirmed a right internal oblique muscle injury.
Anthony’s return to play will depend on how he responds to rehabilitation and treatment.#MagicTogether
At least for a little while, Anthony will be out and unable to play.
In Anthony, the Magic lose their last remaining healthy point guard and someone who is at least a solid scorer. Anthony is averaging 15.5 points per game with a 48.1-percent effective field goal percentage and 4.3 assists per game.
Anthony may not be the best table-setter as a point guard, but he is capable of getting the team quickly into its sets. That experience at least would help the team offensively.
But without consistent playmaking and ball-handling, Orlando’s offense has cratered in the early season. The team has fallen now to 28th in the league in offensive rating (105.0 points per 100 possessions), despite a ton of offensive talent and a Paolo Banchero-inspired uptick in free throw attempts.
The Magic have fallen to a league-worst 47.6-percent assist rate. All the Magic’s hope of being a passing team have fallen to the wayside as the team struggles just to get into sets and give themselves time to execute their offense. Orlando averages only 40.8 potential assists per game according to Second Spectrum, 24th in the league.
The offense is not moving. And a big reason for that is undoubtedly the team’s lack of point guard play.
And now with Anthony out it will be impossible to give a full evaluation of this team and understand where it is at — much less “level up” in the way the team hoped — without the organizing force of a point guard. There are just a lot of square pegs trying to fit into round holes for this group.
The inexperience and discomfort have shown so far. That is perhaps the biggest thing holding the team back from executing consistently on that end.
Markelle Fultz has been out with a broken toe since before training camp. His prognosis for return is still uncertain — before the season started he was in a smaller walking boot but was not doing anything more than standstill shooting in front of the media. Jalen Suggs sprained his ankle in the team’s second game of the season against the Atlanta Hawks on a nasty fall. It is not clear when he will return.
But the Magic are going to be desperate now to fill these minutes and find a way to execute efficiently.
They were already trying out Franz Wagner as essentially the team’s backup point guard. That experiment has not worked well.
Wagner has often struggled to get the team into its sets quickly. His efficiency is way down this year — a 47.5-percent effective field goal percentage down from 51.7-percent as a rookie and 3.2 turnovers per game this year up from 1.5 per game.
Wagner is a capable ball handler and a good attacker off the dribble and in pick and rolls, but he has never had to bring the ball up the floor and organize the team. The Magic’s frustration offensively and the difficulty the team has had getting the ball moving is certainly partly because Wagner has never played this role before.
Wendell Carter has had a rough go of it this season too.
He is averaging 13.8 points per game on 45.3-percent shooting. His 3-point shooting attempts remain the same as it was last year but he is struggling to make shots around the rim.
Despite great chemistry with Wagner, Carter’s pick-and-roll diet has not been nearly the same.
He is averaging 2.2 pick-and-roll possessions as the roll man averaging 0.55 points per possession. He was at 3.4 possessions per game at 1.06 points per possession last year. The Magic are running more pick-and-roll possessions for the roll man overall this year — 6.6 points per possession this year compared to 5.9 last year but at 0.91 points per possession this year compared to 1.02 points per possession last year.
Everything has a trickle-down effect from the team trying to get on the same page offensively and lacking a point guard who has experience and understanding of how to run these types of plays and initiate these kinds of actions.
Everyone is playing worse without a point guard to set the table for them. And that makes it hard to evaluate everyone on this roster and where this team is at.
These struggles are only going to increase without some major tweaks to ease the pressure on him and the team to get into its offense quicker and to corral guards on defense — although Franz Wagner again deserves credit for his defense in helping limit Donovan Mitchell on Wednesday.
Orlando was always going to experiment with running both Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero as main initiators and playmakers for this team. Both are capable passers and capable downhill scorers. The Magic are going to lean on this even more rather than run it as an experiment.
Necessity is the mother of invention and the Magic are going to have to be inventive to get through this stretch no matter how long it lasts.
The problem is that this is such a young team, they are still grasping new concepts on both ends of the floor and are not on the same page. Everything has been thrown off by this lack of organization and stability at point guard.
No one is happy the Magic are 0-5. The team can do a lot of things better that do not require a point guard to be better at.
The Magic’s coaching staff has to adjust whatever plans it has not only to account for the team’s poor start but now without a starting point guard. They have to do everything in their power to make this stretch as easy as possible for the team.
But this moment is about holding the ship together.
Eventually, Fultz, Suggs and Anthony will get back on the floor. When that happens, the team can begin to get a good idea and picture of who this team is.
Until then . . . the seas might remain rough for this young roster without an organizing force out there.