The Orlando Magic will not say it, but they are aiming for the postseason this year. How else is the team supposed to level up from last year after missing out on the postseason by six games and being the last team eliminated from postseason contention?
This is a team, after all, that is full of young players who seemed like they had figured out how to win consistently last year. This season is very much about solidifying those gains and proving the team can grow into a more consistent outfit.
What it will take to climb the standings and climb the ranks into the postseason is both simple and complex. But one thing is pretty obvious.
If Orlando wants to turn its record and take that step up it is going to take winning games (obviously). But more importantly, winning close games — the 50/50 games that could go either way.
If a team on balance wins half of its close games, then something that could determine whether the Magic make the postseason next year could well be their clutch performances.
Part of the Orlando Magic leveling up will be learning how to close tight games and turning losses into wins. That will help the Magic climb the standings as much as anything.
The fun part for the Magic is they seem like they have a lot of different places the team can go late in games. They gave Paolo Banchero plenty of looks to finish games — most notably the closing kick in the win at New Orleans against the New Orleans Pelicans. Franz Wagner took his share of late-game shots too — the most on the team, in fact. And Markelle Fultz proved some late-game chops.
Options are good late in games. And the Magic are likely to continue trusting Banchero and Wagner above all others to execute and make tough shots late in games.
The question will be where the Magic go or how will they get them shots in advantageous positions to turn some of these losses into wins. There is no other place where the Magic showed their immaturity and youth than how they played late in games.
But this is also where the team showed its most potential for growth.
Last year, Orlando went 19-25 in clutch situations last year with a net rating of -9.3 points per 100 possessions (111.1/120.4 offensive/defensive rating). That net rating for clutch situations, when the game is within five points in the final five minutes, was 26th in the league last year.
However, taking out the 5-20 starts, as we often do, the Magic went 16-13 in clutch situations with a +5.1 net rating (117.4/112.3 offensive/defensive rating). That just shows how powerful a point guard like Markelle Fultz can be and how much better this team performs.
Any team would perform better with a point guard, obviously.
The Magic have three quality options that they regularly turned to in clutch situation in Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero and Markelle Fultz. Each brings with him his own strengths and weaknesses worth discussing.
Where do the Orlando Magic go in the clutch?
Franz Wagner
Franz Wagner was the team’s highest-usage player in the clutch. But he was also by far the most inefficient. He averaged 20.4 points per 36 minutes in clutch situations but shot 38.8 percent from the floor and 20.0 percent from beyond the arc.
That is far from his full-season efficiency — 20.5 points per 36 minutes, 48.5 percent shooting and 36.1 percent from deep.
It is no surprise that efficiency decreases late in games. Defenses tend to tighten up late in games and offenses go into a bit of a stall to try to limit possessions. The end of games get weird. And Wagner’s play is clear in how different it is.
Orlando in a lot of late-game situations likes to run sets like this where they may initiate a pick and roll with a guard, but it is really a trick to clear the lane. What they want is an open and free driving lane for their closers to get downhill.
The Magic are chasing this game, down two to the Los Angeles Lakers with a little more than a minute to go on the road. So there is certainly more urgency in how they are running this set.
Wendell Carter does a good job clearing the path for Cole Anthony to get over. D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves stick with him while Wendell Carter dives down to set up post position.
Anthony does not have the size to see Markelle Fultz wide open in the corner or to get the ball to Wendell Carter with the smaller defender on him. So he goes for the release valve in Wagner on the perimeter.
This is where Wagner is truly at his best. He does not give Anthony Davis a chance to get set and almost immediately attacks the closeout. He avoids the traffic in the lane from Austin Reaves having no one to guard (having abandoned Markelle Fultz in the corner) and Dennis Schroder getting eaten up on Wendell Carter’s screen.
The better play may have been to try to kick out to Fultz here. But Wagner attacks quickly and scores. The spread principle helped him get a head of steam and get downhill.
The problem for Wagner in close game situations comes when he gets overeager and settles for jumpers. That is what he did with the Magic down two and 43.2 seconds to go.
Notice the difference in the setup. This is a simple high pick and roll for Wagner rather than an attack on a close-out. Wagner does not really attempt to get a paint touch and settles for a three, which he misses, putting the Magic in a deeper bind to close this game out.
This is a pattern with Wagner unfortunately. It bled into Germany’s loss to Canada last weekend when Wagner missed two 3-pointers late that would have avoided overtime and iced the game for Germany.
Wagner scored only 0.91 points per possession on pick and rolls as the ball handler last year according to data from NBA.com. So a play like this may make logical sense, but it may not play to Wagner’s strengths.
Then again, Wagner did do this the day before against the LA Clippers.
So who are we to say that is not a shot he should be confident in?
At the end of the day, the end-of-game scenarios are all about making and missing shots. And there is no better example of how you perceive a late-game shot than this. Wagner is capable of hitting these shots. But he is still young and learning when the time is for such shots.
Or finding the right rhythm to take these shots.
Where do the Orlando Magic go in the clutch?
Paolo Banchero
If Franz Wagner struggles then late when the game slows down like this, who does do well in clutch situations?
Surprisingly, then, Paolo Banchero actually had a good run in clutch situations.
He averaged 27.2 points per 36 minutes while shooting 42.2 percent shooting and 40.0 percent from deep in clutch situations. He certainly seems like he has the DNA for it.
He had a big finish against the Pelicans when he scored a flurry of points down the stretch to close that game out. He was the embodiment of the growth the Orlando Magic made from their February overtime loss to the Miami Heat to the March overtime win — one of the biggest wins of the season.
This is the kind of play that a typical closer makes and was the bright spot in a rough February as Banchero scored 28 points in this big win. Banchero scored eight points in the final four minutes to put that game away.
And this is simply the kind of shot that Banchero can make that no one else on the team can.
Teams tend to over-rely on isolation plays late in games. There is something romantic about a mano-e-mano battle with the game on the line.
If that is the case, Banchero averaged 3.2 isolation possessions per game last year. Franz Wagner was second at 1.1 per game. Paolo Banchero scored 0.85 points per possession in isolation, good for third on the team (Markelle Fultz led the team at 1.02 points per possession) and in the 41st percentile in the league.
Still, this is an area Banchero can improve. Franz Wagner led the team with 1.4 field goal attempts per game where the closest defender was 0-2 feet away, making 48.1 percent of those shots. Banchero took 1.3 such attempts at 34.1 percent. Not for nothing, Fultz took 1.2 of these attempts per game at 59.5 percent.
Banchero led the team with 7.7 field goal attempts per game with the closest defender 2-4 feet away, making 45.6 percent of those shots. Wagner took 6.7 of these attempts at 52.3 percent and Fultz took 6.4 attempts at 51.6 percent overall.
This is part of the overall efficiency Banchero has to improve. But the Magic turned to Banchero a lot in these situations. They believe he will get there and so this is an investment in him.
It is also clear that if the team plays things right, even misses in this situation can put the team in a good spot. That is what happened on the Wendell Carter game-winner against the Detroit Pistons.
This play is set up for Banchero to get downhill. The Magic have put the ball in his hands to win this game. He does a good job beating his man and getting to the middle of the lane. He misses the shot, but he is able to draw a second defender just enough to give Wendell Carter the lane for the putback.
This is the attention that Banchero brings. Much like shooting gravity, it is more about perception than reality sometimes. Banchero is not an efficient scorer yet, but every defense gives him attention like he is one. And that is ultimately what benefits him.
Banchero ended up leading the team after Dec. 7 in clutch field goals with 45. Banchero is where the Magic turned more often than not in close games. But surprisingly, perhaps, Fultz was right behind him with 44 and Wagner had 43.
Where do the Orlando Magic go in the clutch?
Markelle Fultz
The reality is that Markelle Fultz might be the Magic’s best option late in games. Not necessarily because of his scoring, but because he can both score and distribute.
In clutch situations, Fultz averaged 25.9 points per 36 minutes while shooting 59.1 percent from the floor. He added 6.1 assists per 36 minutes in clutch situations to boot.
Fultz’s advantage is the variable way he can score late in games. He is excellent in normal circumstances at controlling the pace. But in the games where he takes over late, he often does so simply by pushing the pace and getting after defenses as they reset.
Fultz had his best individual game in the win over the LA Clippers in March — 28 points in the win. And it was because he took advantage of plays like this.
This play starts with great rim protection from Wendell Carter. Fultz gets the rebound and moves the ball up at a normal pace. But when nobody picks him up, he hits the jets and is able to body Robert Covington out of the way and finish at the rim.
It is reminiscent of the way he finished the Orlando Magic’s win over the Los Angeles Lakers back in 2020 in what felt like his breakout game of that season.
He had a second play like this to help the Magic extend the lead to five points a few possessions later when the Clippers did not pick him up.
Markelle Fultz averaged 1.14 points per possession in transition, that put him in the 53rd percentile in the league (and notably puts him behind Franz Wagner and Gary Harris. Fultz can be a little bit wild at times. But it is also clear how good Fultz can be when he gets downhill.
Essentially when Fultz has the ball, he is trying to create a situation where he can get downhill with momentum going to the basket. He can finish when he has that behind him.
That is what Fultz is trying to do in this late-game situation against the Detroit Pistons. From a standstill, they set up a quick screen using Gary Harris. Notice that Fultz is standing right near the mid-court line waiting for the right side of the lane to clear from Harris.
That creates the matchup Fultz wants as he attacks Bojan Bogdanovic on the switch — notice how Bogdanovic takes a bad step that makes him have to correct his body to try to stay in front of Fultz.
That is when Fultz hits the afterburners and with a free lane, he is going to score. Even if a defender is able to get in the way, he is crafty enough to finish at the rim to score.
Fultz was excellent in these situations, scoring 64.8 percent of his field goals in the restricted area (a mark that trailed only Franz Wagner at 65.4 percent among regular rotation players). Fultz made 50.3 percent of his shots in the paint outside of the restricted area.
What all this should highlight then is how the Magic have different ways they can attack and score late in games. That is the larger point that matters about what the Magic can do late in games and how they can flip those losses to wins.
The Magic are not likely to change this profile for late games very much. They are probably going to lean on Banchero — Wagner tends to dominate the early parts of the fourth quarter when he plays with the second unit.
And a lot of this, simplistically, comes down to making or missing shots — in the Orlando Magic’s loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in April, for instance, the Magic got downhill and got open shots that they just missed as they desperately tried to stay in that game and keep their postseason dreams alive.
But the team has options and players who are not afraid to rise to the moment — Wendell Carter and Jalen Suggs actually recorded buzzer-beating shots for wins last year. And that will take them a long way.