The Magic put up a fight
Orlando allows a season-worst 74 points in paint
in Washington but don’t quite have enough to get past the Wizards as they fall 125-119.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Wizards’ John Wall and Bradley Beal form one of the best backcourts in basketball.
Yet there’s still no excuse for what the Orlando Magic defense permitted Friday night.
With Wall and Beal determined to attack the hoop, the Magic allowed 74 points in the paint and lost to the Wizards 125-119 at Capital One Arena.
“They are really good,” Magic swingman Evan Fournier said. “But we’ve still got to guard better, man. They are the same players that play against different teams, and different teams just lock down defensively better and they get it done. We can’t get it done. So we’ve got to do better.”
Perfectly said. The Magic simply don’t defend, especially on the perimeter.
Wall, Beal and their teammates on Friday had a simple game plan: attack, attack, attack, even though the Magic’s best rim protector, Bismack Biyombo, started at center.
“When Biyombo isn’t in the game, they don’t have too many shot-blockers,” Beal said. “So we took advantage of that. And even when he was in the game, we tried to attack him and get him in foul trouble.”
The Magic (12-31) can point to
some positives. Aside from a flurry of first-half turnovers and some poor decisions down the stretch, their offense performed superbly. Aaron Gordon set an unselfish tone, recording a career-high seven assists, and Biyombo scored a career-high 21 points. Statistically, Elfrid Payton nearly equaled Wall, compiling 27 points and eight assists.
Still, Orlando rarely plays well on both ends of the floor in the same game.
On defense, the problems typically start on the perimeter, where the team’s players just don’t stay in front of their assigned men well enough. Payton has never fulfilled the expectations the Magic’s prior basketball operations regime had for him when they acquired him as a rookie in a draft-night trade in 2014. But he’s just one of the Magic’s problems.
“[We] just have to do a better job on defense, starting with me,” swingman Jonathon Simmons said. “The defense was atrocious tonight. … When the ball gets moving sideto-side, I think we have to make extra-effort plays on the defensive end. I think we’re just a tad slow. We’re there — we’re trying to get there — but we just need to be a little bit earlier.”
Wall scored 30 points and distributed nine assists while Beal scored 30 points and dished out seven assists.
It was easy for the Wizards (24-18), who made 57 percent of their shot attempts.
“We did a great job of just attacking, trying to get downhill and be more aggressive,” Wall said. “We just watched a lot of film with the coaches and just tried to put our heads down and get to the rim and try to get to the freethrow line a little bit.”
With the Magic trailing 112-111, Gordon drove to the hoop and appeared to absorb contact from Wizards center Ian Mahinmi as Gordon released an errant shot with 5:11 left in the fourth quarter. No foul was called on the play, prompting Gordon to raise his hands over his head.
Mahinmi gathered the rebound and passed the ball to Wall, who dribbled forward and forced Payton to backpedal. When Biyombo collapsed toward Wall in the lane, Wall hurled the ball to the perimeter for Kelly Oubre Jr. Oubre launched a 3-pointer before Fournier could arrive, and the ball swished through the net.
Magic coach Frank Vogel liked his team’s effort and the way it passed the ball.
And yet while his players clicked on the offensive end, their performance on defense wasn’t good enough.
“It’s not surprising,” Vogel said. “That’s our weakness — on the defensive end — right now. We’ve got to improve. We’re going to keep working at it. We are working at it. And we’ve got to keep following our assignments, doing it with toughness and we’ve got to make winning plays. We’ve got to find a way to get stops in those situations.”
“The defense was atrocious tonight.” Orlando forward Jonathon Simmons