The 7-loss bowl: Orlando at Detroit
By J.M. Poulard
Essentials
- Teams: Orlando Magic (4-7) at Detroit Pistons (3-7)
- Date: November 17
- Time: 7:30 p.m.
- Television: FSD
Get in the Game
The Orlando Magic bother me in ways that make absolutely no sense. They are a team filled with individual parts that are worth enjoying, but collectively it’s a different story.
For instance, Channing Frye should blow up just about every defensive scheme in the book because of his three-point shooting proficiency as a power forward.
Defenders should pull away from the paint to stick to him and allow Nikola Vucevik to operate in the low-post area. Vucevik is real slow at getting into his moves and passing the ball out when double teams present themselves, which is why every bit of space helps.
However, the Magic don’t capitalize nearly often enough with Frye sharing the court with Vucevik. The tandem shares the floor for 24.7 minutes per game and only produces 95.9 points per 100 possessions, according to NBA.com.
That kind of scoring places them in the same stratosphere as the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks. Part of the problem is the amount of time Vucevik needs to get into his moves, and the other problem is Orlando’s lack of polished passers.
The Magic are breaking in a rookie (Elfrid Payton) and second-year player (Victor Oladipo) at point guard, and it’s holding the offense back a little. There’s a chance that both will be serviceable or perhaps even great backcourt players down the line, but at the moment, they are holding the offense back just a smidge.
Payton and Oladipo don’t anticipate openings very well, thus they are often a second late reacting to defenses. It’s worth noting, the offense has been better with Oladipo leading Frye and Vucevik, but the sophomore has only appeared in two games this season because of a facial fracture.
It’s possible things could get better as Oladipo gets more repetition with his teammates and figures out how to get them the ball, or the offense might sink to deeper depths with more scouting.
It’s worth reiterating, some of the individual pieces are interesting talents that could flourish on another roster. In turn, that means that every now and then, Magic players can put it all together and operate as a coalesced unit seemingly by accident.
When that happens, you get Tobias Harris running off screens and making jumpers or attacking the restricted area where he’s converting a ridiculous 70.6 percent of his shots, per NBA.com.
Harris is your prototypical small forward at 6’8’’ and 226 lbs. He’s fairly efficient from the field and also converts 37.5 percent of his treys. It’s a modern day mystery that he (17.9 points per game) and Vucevik (18.2 points per game) can’t make Orlando a respectable offense with their individual talents.
The Magic have a bottom-third offense and simply don’t do enough with the pieces they have. It would be interesting to see how the team would fare with a player like Rajon Rondo running the show, but alas, that’s basketball fantasy at this point.
This isn’t to suggest that the Detroit Pistons will have an easy time tonight, but rather that the job of limiting Orlando’s offense won’t be the difficult task that Detroit faced against the Chicago Bulls.
As long as the Pistons can swarm the paint and recover back to shooters – they don’t even need to do this exceptionally well – they should be fine. Sure, Orlando is the second-best long-range shooting team in the league, but they are in the league’s bottom-third attempts.
As long as Detroit handles those facets well, head coach Stan Van Gundy will have himself a win by night’s end.
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