As Lakers near, Fultz remains out of rotation

After further film study, Orlando Magic coach Steve Clifford came away encouraged by his team’s overall play during Wednesday’s opening scrimmage against the Los Angeles Clippers.

While the Magic ultimately dropped a 99-90 decision, Clifford said his team did “a lot more good than bad” during the abbreviated 40-minute scrimmage.

“I told the guys, I thought we did a lot of good things,” Clifford said Thursday. “We have not been nearly as detailed in terms of drill work and coverages. It’s basically the way we do the beginning of training camp, where we just play a lot. That’s what we did today. They did a good job. The things that we didn’t do as well, frankly we haven’t worked on very much.

“There were things I think we took a big step toward correcting today and we have another day tomorrow before we play the Lakers.”

The Magic resume scrimmage play Saturday against the Lakers but will do so without starting point guard Markelle Fultz.

Clifford said that Fultz, who sat out Wednesday’s game, is still getting into game shape and has not been cleared yet to play 5-on-5.

Fultz is behind in his conditioning. He joined the team about a week late after dealing with a personal matter and continues to work his way back into playing shape. Until Fultz is able to compete in 5-on-5 scenarios and run up and down the floor, Clifford said Fultz won’t participate in a scrimmage.

“He’s just not ready physically to do that,” Clifford said of Fultz. “He’s not at a conditioning level where we’re comfortable that he could get out there and play in a scrimmage nor 5-on-5 in practice.”

Clifford has long acknowledged the challenges that the restart would present, and conditioning is perhaps the biggest of all.

Clifford will continue to work closely with high performance director David Tenney as they monitor each player individually and respond accordingly.

“That’s what we’re going to do all the way through this. We have a plan for each guy,” Clifford said.