Orlando Magic Playbook: How the Orlando Magic take advantage of the good looks they get

The Orlando Magic have a bright future. Everyone can recognize that after their breakthrough into the playoffs last year and pushing the Cleveland Cavaliers to a Game 7.

They have two potential All-Stars in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner too. The seeds for a long playoff run are there for the Magic to continue building and growing. And they are young enough that they should be given that opportunity to build and grow.

But everyone can recognize why the Magic are not yet considered among the young contenders. It is not just that they have to prove their showing last year was more than a one-year burst. They have to prove they can compete at the highest levels.

And the big reason why there is fear the Magic will not be consistent is centered on their offense and shooting.

Magic fans can recite many of the key stats from memory. The team finished 29th in 3-point field goal attempts and 24th in 3-point field goal percentage.

Most of the questions centered on the Magic's two stars hover on this shooting question too. Franz Wagner could be a surefire All-Star, but he shot 28.1 percent from three last year. Paolo Banchero has been criticized for his statistical inefficiency as he takes on the load of being the Magic's star player.

As president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman pointed out, the Magic were improved after Jan. 1 from deep, finishing 15th in the league after that point in the season. And Orlando had some stellar shooting games this year—including a franchise-record 25 3-pointers in the overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings and strong 3-point shooting efforts in Games 3 and 4 of the series with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Still, there were a lot of dud 3-point shooting games that continue to highlight the Magic's shooting deficiency—remember the 8-for-37 showing and 9-for-35 showing in Games 1 and 2 or the 2-for-33 showing against the Cavs in December?

The questions have to be asked whether the Magic need to take and make more 3-pointers (duh, of course) and the quality of those shots. What is a good shot and a bad shot in this offense?

The open shot problem

Statistically speaking, the Orlando Magic were a better shooting team than their overall stats might suggest. And at least statistically, the quality of their shots were decent.

According to NBA.com's tracking stats, Orlando took 1,496 of their 2,568 3-point attempts with the closest defender six or more feet away (58.3 percent). Those "wide open" attempts, as NBA.com defines them, were the 14th-most in the league.

Even though the Magic took one of the fewest 3-point attempts in the league, they got a lot of these supposedly high-value open shots.

Orlando made only 37.8 percent of these wide-open shots though. That was the seventh-worst in the league.

On "open" shots, when the closest defender is 4-6 feet away, the Magic took 876 of their 2,568 3-point attempts (34.1 percent). That was the seventh-fewest in the league. They made only 33.3 percent of these shots, the seventh-fewest in the league too.

When everyone says it is a make-or-miss league, this is what they are talking about.

Teams were happy to pack the paint and deny the Magic's forays inside last year, letting them hoist from three until they proved they could make those shots. Everyone recognizes this weakness.

Orlando has to make 3-pointers at a higher rate. And the team gets so few, it has to make the quality looks the team does get.

It is fair to wonder how accurate the NBA's labels of these kinds of shots are. And it is fair to wonder if the Magic do not get a ton of these shots because teams are happy to let them fire from three.

Overall, Orlando was rightfully selective with its 3-point shooting. The team knew this was not its strength and embraced being a low-volume team. But that only made it worse when the team worked for good shots and missed them.

That was evident in many of the Magic's worst 3-point shooting games last year.

Take the Dec. 6 game in Cleveland when Orlando went 2 for 23 from three. According to NBA.com's tracking stats, the Magic were 0 for 7 on wide-open threes and 2 for 12 on open threes. That means at least statistically, 19 of the 23 threes they took in that game were "good" shots.

A closer examination saw the Magic taking their share of pull-ups. But there were also a lot of shots that were either just missed or shots that came from slightly off-target passes, disrupting the rhythm of some of the Magic's more inconsistent shooters.

That only highlights misses like this one where a good shooter misses a clean look off the kind of dribble penetration and inside-out play the Magic's offense depends on.

On this play, Paolo Banchero does exactly what he is supposed to do, getitng into the paint and drawing three defenders to him. Even the low man in Donovan Mitchell steps too far toward him and Paolo Banchero fires an accurate pass to Gary Harris in the corner for a 3-point attempt with Isaac Okoro closing in from the side.

Harris is the shooter the Magic want setting up in the corner like this and he likely could not move the ball back out to Cole Anthony at the top of the key with Isaac Okoro's length closing out.

This, in other words, is the exact kind of shot the Magic are looking for. He just unfortunately misses it. The Magic would take this shot on every possession, knowing Harris will make four of every 10 of these shots.

Getting an on-time, on-target pass is critical because so many Magic players are inconsistent and teams are going to be happy to close out slowly to them until proven otherwise.

Many Magic misses could be attributed to passes that take the shooter off rhythm or force them to adjust.

In the March game against the New York Knicks, the Orlando Magic do a good job of getting penetration and sucking the defense in. The kick out to Jonathan Isaac is a bit off target and he initially wants to pass to the corner to Joe Ingles.

Isaac pulls back from that decision and then is off balance. Even with Josh Hart slow to get out to him, Isaac never fully regains his balance. And the shot misses because of this.

This is an open shot very clearly, but it is not a good shot because Isaac has lost his balance.

For the Magic, on-time, on-target passing is critical to a good 3-point shot. That erases a lot of the deficit of their shoting disadvantages.

And, after all, 1,938 of their attempts (75.5 percent) of their 3-point attempts were catch-and-shoot attempts. Anything to make those shots easier will go a long way.

Orlando's 3-point attempts were quality looks. It is hard to argue with most of the looks they got. Far too often, something small knocked them off balance and kept them from making the most of the opportunities.

How Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will help

Undoubtedly the Orlando Magic looked to address their shooting concerns with the free agent addition of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

While Caldwell-Pope is not the volume shooter that a lot of fans likely sought to increase the Magic's raw number of attempts, he is still an excellent 3-point shooter, hitting 40.6 percent of his 3-point shots last year for the Denver Nuggets, the only team that took fewer threes than the Orlando Magic last year. He has made 40 percent of his threes in three of the last four seasons.

That alone should give the Magic more spacing, especially if he can hit the shots the Magic tend to generate.

Last year, Caldwell-Pope made 39.7 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers according to Second Spectrum. Gary Harris, for reference, made only 37.0 percent last year.

Additionally, Caldwell-Pope made 44.0 percent of his shots with the closest defender six or more feet away and 29.1 percent of his 3-point attempts came in that situation. If the Magic can get him open shots, he will make them, much like Gary Harris and Jalen Suggs will if they repeat last year's results.

Of course, the big difference is the Magic will not have Nikola Jokic to get Kentavious Caldwell-Pope open looks. Jokic was responsible for 12.3 passes per game to Caldwell-Pope last year.

But Caldwell-Pope was really good at moving into open space and setting his feet quickly to hit open threes. That will make him really valuable if the Magic are a bit off-target with their passes and take more advantage of his open looks.

Caldwell-Pope in other words, thrived on a lot of the same quality of shots the Magic took last year. If he is as good as his numbers indicate, shots like this one should be there for him with the attention Banchero tends to receive.

It is easy to dismiss a play like this as something Jokic created, and that is the biggest question about the Magic's acquisition of Caldwell-Pope. But Caldwell-Pope hovers into open space and quickly sets his feet to get a quality shot. He moves himself into an on-target pass that gets him into a rhythm to shoot.

That makes this an easy pass for a gifted player like Jokic to make. And if Paolo Banchero or Franz Wagner can suck defenders into their orbit, they are tall enough to pass Caldwell-Pope into this open space. From there, he can do the work.

There are a lot of plays like this in Caldwell-Pope's tape where he just hovers in open space and quickly adjusts to the pass as it is thrown. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is someone a player can pass open like a wide receiver (Jalen Suggs may like that most).

It should be clear Caldwell-Pope will help the Magic create some space and make some of the quality looks they make in a way their current roster struggled to do so. Adding in a pair of projected solid rookie shooters in Jett Howard (not really a rookie, but a rookie by experience) and Tristan Da Silva will help too.

But the Magic know their best 3-point shots are still going to come from inside-out play and getting their feet set off good passes. Opponents are going to give them these open shots and so it is on the Magic to set those shooters up for success to make them pay for that decision.

Too often last year, Orlando got what looked on paper to be good looks and just missed them for a variety of reasons.

The Magic have to stay patient and move the ball to get these open shots. They cannot be afraid to take shots when they come.

But it is something more specific than that: It is making an on-target pass that gets shooters into rhythm and into their strengths that could turn the tide.