More coverage from Magic season opener,
The Orlando Magic knew exactly what to expect from the Miami Heat on Wednesday night. Heat guards Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters and Tyler Johnson love to drive into the paint, force defenders to help and then either go up for layups or feed the ball to Hassan Whiteside. That’s the Heat’s game. And the Magic still couldn’t stop it.
Opening night usually signifies renewal, and the Magic entered the evening with a new coach, nine new players and new hope. But the team still looked like its old self. The Heat sliced into the lane at will or took advantage of Magic miscues on offense as they trounced the Magic 108-96 in front of an announced crowd of 19,298 people, the secondlargest crowd in Amway Center history.
“That was one of the keys to the game: contain the ball,” Magic swingman Evan Fournier said. “They had drives on drives on drives that led to pocket passes, open 3s and layups. So it cost us a lot.”
Same old Magic. For one night at least.
The Magic looked discombobulated. On offense, they made only 39 percent of their shots and sank only six 3-pointers. But they struggled most on defense. The Heat sank 49 percent of their attempts and scored 74 of their 104 points in the paint.
“They just drove us the whole game,” backup point guard D.J. Augustin said.
The Magic played without their best rim protector, center Bismack Biyombo, who served a one-game league suspension for accumulating too many flagrant fouls as a Toronto Raptor during the 2016 playoffs.
With Biyombo out, the Magic figured to have more problems than usual with Whiteside, and Whiteside put his stamp on the game, finishing with 16 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks.
Biyombo at least would have deterred some of the drives to the hoop and might have outmuscled Whiteside for some rebounds.
The offense struggled, too, especially in the third quarter, when the Magic made only five of their 20 shots. All of those misses enabled the Heat to sprint upcourt in transition, which led to easy baskets.
“They picked up their intensity, and we didn’t execute,” Magic coach Frank Vogel said.
Magic players know it’ll take time to adjust to each other and to their new coaches.
“That’s part of it, but we can’t just use that as an excuse,” center Nikola Vucevic said. “We have to figure it out fast, because we have a tough schedule in front of us, and if we dig ourselves a hole, it’s going to be really hard. Part of it is that [newness], but I think that mostly we didn’t play the right way when we needed to in the second half.”
How long will it take for the Magic to jell — if they ever jell?
Consider a Miami possession midway through the second quarter. Justise Winslow drove past Aaron Gordon and reached the hoop for an easy layup. When the ball went through the hoop, Gordon looked at Serge Ibaka as if to say, “Where were you?”
Making his regular-season Magic debut, Ibaka scored 14 points as he went six for 17 from the floor.
Fournier added a gamehigh 20 points, while Vucevic contributed 17 points and 14 rebounds.
The miscommunication seemed to intensify early in the third quarter.
Miami began the period on a 16-5 run. Several missed Magic shots, including one on a Whiteside block, led to Heat fastbreaks.
The rout was on by the early stages of the fourth quarter.
Miami’s James Johnson connected with Willie Reed for an alley-oop dunk, putting the Heat ahead 87-69.
Soon, fans started to file out of the arena.
With 1:40 left in the fourth quarter, Heat fans inside Amway Center started chanting, “Let’s go Heat! Let’s go Heat! Let’s go Heat!”