Positive signs for Payton
One of the few positives from the Orlando Magic’s convincing season-opening defeat can be found in the box score.
Elfrid Payton, who struggled from the freethrow line throughout his first two seasons, made all eight of his foul shots Wednesday.
Payton’s game would receive a massive boost if he gains confidence at the line. It would make him more likely to remain in attack mode, which is exactly what coach Frank
Vogel wants to see. “He’s going to have a good year from the stripe,” Vogel said. “He’s worked really hard. He’s shooting the ball the right way now. He’s gotten a little bit better with his technique and fundamentals, and the repetitions pay dividends. When you work as hard as he’s worked, it’s going to pay dividends. I’m confident in that.”
Payton converted 55.1 percent of his free-throw tries as a rookie and 58.9 percent last season.
Payton has received some tutoring from Dave
Love, the independent shooting coach the Magic have hired to work with some of their players. Love has helped Aaron
Gordon improve his shooting stroke, and Love is now in his second season working with Payton.
The Magic have struggled to get to the line ever since the 2012-13 season.
Last year, they attempted 20.1 free throws a game. But they went 22 for 28 from the line against Miami. Scoring woes
Eighteen of the Magic’s free-throw attempts occurred in the first half.
The second-half decline in foul shots stemmed partly from a larger unraveling of the Magic’s offense. The team looked out-of-sync throughout the third quarter and managed to score only 16 points during the period.
“We didn’t respect the gameplan like Coach asked us to do,” big man
Serge Ibaka said. “So that’s what happens when you don’t respect the gameplan.”
Vogel said the team failed to do some basic things.
“We didn’t execute,” Vogel said. “The third quarter was just very frustrating just executing simple fundamentals: screening and using a screen and understanding the extra pass is what’s necessary against a guy like [Heat center Hassan] Whiteside. We didn’t execute all that stuff, and that’s why we looked the way we did. So hopefully we’ll be better next time.” Tough opponent
The Magic have lost six consecutive games to their opponent Friday night, the Detroit Pistons.
One of the major reasons for the Magic’s frustrations is Pistons center
Andre Drummond, who is a threat to roll to the hoop in pick-and-rolls and is dangerous in the lob game.
Vogel is friendly with Pistons coach Stan Van
Gundy, and Vogel sees parallels between Van Gundy’s Magic old teams and Van Gundy’s Pistons.
Vogel said: “He’s created something there with Drummond similar to what he had here with
Dwight Howard with shooters around him and playing the spread game and making it very difficult to bring help to his lob game without coming off shooters. You get beat that way.”