Focus on rebounding, ball movement as Magic prepare to tussle with Lakers
The Orlando Magic, losers of their past two games, have a few things to iron out as they venture into Staples Center on Sunday for Game 2 of their fivegame Western road swing against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Foremost on head coach Steve Clifford's list is rebounding — specifically on the defensive end, where the Magic's past two opponents, Toronto and Denver, made Orlando's defense pay for not getting to the rim on missed shots.
The Raptors' offensive rebound numbers may not jump out of the box score because they only had six, but they converted most of them into 17 secondchance points and Clifford said his team can't expect to win while failing to attack the glass.
Then came Friday night in Denver, where the Nuggets made the Magic pay for their lack of “hitting,” as Clifford calls it, turning 12 offensive rebounds into 23 secondchance points. That, as well as being out-rebounded overall by the Nuggets 51-37, is unacceptable by Clifford's standards.
“It's been something we've talked about a lot,” Clifford said following the Magic's practice Saturday at the Galen Center on the USC campus. “Three of [Denver's] first five misses last night they got, and it's not like we were hitting and there was a battle in there. That part, we have to change.”
The Magic also have seen teams get more aggressive defending the high pick-and roll, putting bigger players at the point of the ball and sending two defenders at the ballhandler. Toronto and Denver seemed to pick up on some things the Magic were doing getting into their offensive sets, so their answer was to disrupt the flow before it got started.
Magic forward Aaron Gordon called it “blitzing.”
“We played terrible against their blitzing, against their pick-and-roll scheme,” Gordon said of the Denver loss. “We didn't do anything we needed to do. Not a lot of teams play like that because there are gaps, so you move the ball and swing it ... hit the roll man, or hit the corner and you should have wideopen shots every time, but we just weren't getting off the ball quick enough.”
Forward Evan Fournier said there was a lack of energy, which could have been due to the long flight to Denver and the high altitude. Whatever the case, Fourier said the Magic lacked energy.
“I think the bottom line [against Denver] was we got outworked. They were the most aggressive team. We tried to execute, but we had no rhythm, no flow and no intensity,” Fournier said.
Clifford said the Magic worked on a few things to help combat that type of aggressive defense in practice Saturday because he expects to see more of the same against the Lakers.
“We did more [with] pick-and-rolls and end-ofoffense flow, where we haven't been as good, just trying to create more actions so we can get the ball going to the basket more,” Clifford said. “[Denver] was more aggressive with their bigs, so they're going to take the ball out of the ballhandlers' hands quicker and not allow them to turn the corner and get into the paint. … They force you to throw more passes. They force the other guys to be smarter without the ball, to get in position where you can move in past their big, and we weren't good at doing that.”
Some of the lack of ball movement come from reacting and recognizing the open player.
“You're going to have a short period of time there where you have a chance to have a 4-on-3 if the next guy moves or drives it quickly,” Clifford said. “[The Nuggets] did a good job of recovering quickly back into their man, quicker than we were able to attack, and it was a big part of the game.”
The key is working the ball around to the open spots, but if players are slow on the release, it gives the opposition the opportunity to react.
“We're gonna see it [Sunday] too because [the Lakers] do some of that too,” Clifford said. “So much of it is the four guys off the ball, and then the first pass out of the trap, making a quick decision and making it be the right decision.”