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Watching Mavericks destroy our 10 point lead with Fultz being on the benched at the 6 min mark and Luke playing the entire quarter. is seriously starting to get old.

He has done this all season and I think it's just stupid. How can a player like Fultz get into a rhythm if he keeps playing 6 minutes at a time?

Yea no doubt this loss is entirely on Cliff.

We were up 10, and Fultz was on pace to have a huge game by DRIVING THE BALL, and what does he do? He benches him for DJ who can't do anything but dribble a lot and shoot, and guess what? Luka plays the entire quarter and evaporates our lead and momentum.

Getting sick of this Coach, he has lost us 2-3 games this season with his substitution and play calling. I am losing patience with him.

Fultz is definitely on a minutes restriction. Cliff basically admitted it before the game. But yes his game management is leaving a lot to be desired so far this season.

7 games into new season and fans are already blaming Clifford for everything . You can't even make this stuff up.

pepe1991 wrote:7 games into new season and fans are already blaming Clifford for everything . You can't even make this stuff up.

He's not the one missing shots but he is in control of putting in 5 bench lineups or leaving in players that are struggling in the game to bench guys that have been playing well for extended periods. Every coach does this though so it's not like he is unique to this issue.. but watching Doncic and Porzingis against 5 bench players is kinda like ??

SOUL wrote:

pepe1991 wrote:7 games into new season and fans are already blaming Clifford for everything . You can't even make this stuff up.

He's not the one missing shots but he is in control of putting in 5 bench lineups or leaving in players that are struggling in the game to bench guys that have been playing well for extended periods. Every coach does this though so it's not like he is unique to this issue.. but watching Doncic and Porzingis against 5 bench players is kinda like ??

But he didn't construct roster. Magic issue is that they have too many one-dimensional- defensive oriented players.
Magic as a team shoot 26,6% for 3. That's beyond hopless. Second worst team, Hawks, shoot 29,1%, that's full 2,5% better than Orlando.

He is pretty much mixing rotations to figure what to do, and the truth is - there is just so little you can do with roster that has defensive specialists with no offense in it

Look players he has to play /rotate
MCw
Bamba
Iwundu
Birch
Aminu
Fultz
Isaac
Ross
DJ Augustin

What all of them have in common? Not a single one of them is career 11 ppg scorer. Even ones who can shoot ( DJ, Ross ) are not big time scorers. Ross had one good year and now he fell off cliff. MCW only averaged 16 ppg when he played 35 min on 10 wins team.

There is NOBODY else to blame but Weltman and Hammond for creating this abomination of a team as their bias towrad lenght over basketball talent overshadows everything.
As for Clifford, You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh**.

Literally every single Magic player that they signed and drafted can't shoot. God forbid having ballhandling or passing skills. That's forbiden.
Hammond drafted Giannis, that notion alone saved his job in Bucks and gave him new job with Orlando. How long can you be excued for sucking because of 1 good move you made in your career?

What bothers me is when we actually go on a scoring run and then he substitutes the guys out who was scoring well. I really don’t understand that.

The Fultz benching in the 3rd quarter was just a head scratcher for me. We had momentum and we make a switch for like 10 game time minutes

pepe1991 wrote:

SOUL wrote:

pepe1991 wrote:7 games into new season and fans are already blaming Clifford for everything . You can't even make this stuff up.

He's not the one missing shots but he is in control of putting in 5 bench lineups or leaving in players that are struggling in the game to bench guys that have been playing well for extended periods. Every coach does this though so it's not like he is unique to this issue.. but watching Doncic and Porzingis against 5 bench players is kinda like ??

But he didn't construct roster. Magic issue is that they have too many one-dimensional- defensive oriented players.
Magic as a team shoot 26,6% for 3. That's beyond hopless. Second worst team, Hawks, shoot 29,1%, that's full 2,5% better than Orlando.

He is pretty much mixing rotations to figure what to do, and the truth is - there is just so little you can do with roster that has defensive specialists with no offense in it

Look players he has to play /rotate
MCw
Bamba
Iwundu
Birch
Aminu
Fultz
Isaac
Ross
DJ Augustin

What all of them have in common? Not a single one of them is career 11 ppg scorer. Even ones who can shoot ( DJ, Ross ) are not big time scorers. Ross had one good year and now he fell off cliff. MCW only averaged 16 ppg when he played 35 min on 10 wins team.

There is NOBODY else to blame but Weltman and Hammond for creating this abomination of a team as their bias towrad lenght over basketball talent overshadows everything.
As for Clifford, You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh**.

Literally every single Magic player that they signed and drafted can't shoot. God forbid having ballhandling or passing skills. That's forbiden.
Hammond drafted Giannis, that notion alone saved his job in Bucks and gave him new job with Orlando. How long can you be excued for sucking because of 1 good move you made in your career?

11 ppg is a very specific threshold when it comes to game by game management though. Whether it's an 11 ppg career scorer or less player or more (which, not sure why this number but sure), any player can be hot or cold during the game and it's not like we have any superstars. It's also just staggering players. It was the same issue with Vogel in that he would play 5 man bench units and we'd piss away the lead versus teams with starters. So it's a hard job for Clifford to balance everybody, but I understand why people get annoyed too. Some guys sit too long and others get pulled when they're heating up.

I think it's less about him being scared to bench struggling players (which, he benched Vuc a few days ago, so obviously no one is excluded), and more about hey, if we have a 9 point lead or something, maybe a lineup where our best scorer is Aminu or DJ Augustin isn't the best idea for a five minute stretch.

So here's a rundown on the frequency we run pick and rolls and their PPP through 7 games.



Fultz actually has the 2nd highest frequency in pick and roll situations per game, 2nd highest pick and roll possessions next to DJ (WHY?), but he is only 4th in PPP. And highest in Turnover frequency.

All of this on the way he is being played in these situations. Below I've highlighted 3 pick and roll situations during the 1st half (typing this while I pause the replay inbetween halves on league pass.)

First highlight led to a bucket. But look at the defense sagging off him, waiting for him to drive with Powell helping out (did not only happen in this PnR situation). Which partly explains why his turnover frequency is also pretty high, other than Bamba not catching his potential assists.



Next two highlights, defenders still sag on him daring him to shoot. The 2nd video below led to poor spacing, the first to a turnover.




Defenders are cutting off his drives and freely letting him shoot it from the perimeter. Atlanta game, he had a good 1st half, then they decided to sag him in the second half, he was pretty much ineffective and only creates poor spacing.

I'm not sure why a lot of people are still complaining about us not giving him the keys to takeover the game in late game situations when this is pretty much the same story every game.

SOUL wrote:

pepe1991 wrote:

SOUL wrote:
He's not the one missing shots but he is in control of putting in 5 bench lineups or leaving in players that are struggling in the game to bench guys that have been playing well for extended periods. Every coach does this though so it's not like he is unique to this issue.. but watching Doncic and Porzingis against 5 bench players is kinda like ??

But he didn't construct roster. Magic issue is that they have too many one-dimensional- defensive oriented players.
Magic as a team shoot 26,6% for 3. That's beyond hopless. Second worst team, Hawks, shoot 29,1%, that's full 2,5% better than Orlando.

He is pretty much mixing rotations to figure what to do, and the truth is - there is just so little you can do with roster that has defensive specialists with no offense in it

Look players he has to play /rotate
MCw
Bamba
Iwundu
Birch
Aminu
Fultz
Isaac
Ross
DJ Augustin

What all of them have in common? Not a single one of them is career 11 ppg scorer. Even ones who can shoot ( DJ, Ross ) are not big time scorers. Ross had one good year and now he fell off cliff. MCW only averaged 16 ppg when he played 35 min on 10 wins team.

There is NOBODY else to blame but Weltman and Hammond for creating this abomination of a team as their bias towrad lenght over basketball talent overshadows everything.
As for Clifford, You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh**.

Literally every single Magic player that they signed and drafted can't shoot. God forbid having ballhandling or passing skills. That's forbiden.
Hammond drafted Giannis, that notion alone saved his job in Bucks and gave him new job with Orlando. How long can you be excued for sucking because of 1 good move you made in your career?

11 ppg is a very specific threshold when it comes to game by game management though. Whether it's an 11 ppg career scorer or less player or more (which, not sure why this number but sure), any player can be hot or cold during the game and it's not like we have any superstars. It's also just staggering players. It was the same issue with Vogel in that he would play 5 man bench units and we'd piss away the lead versus teams with starters. So it's a hard job for Clifford to balance everybody, but I understand why people get annoyed too. Some guys sit too long and others get pulled when they're heating up.

I think it's less about him being scared to bench struggling players (which, he benched Vuc a few days ago, so obviously no one is excluded), and more about hey, if we have a 9 point lead or something, maybe a lineup where our best scorer is Aminu or DJ Augustin isn't the best idea for a five minute stretch.

i used 11 because out of all people- MCW averages 10,8 for career due inflated Philly stats
Ross is career 10,5 ppg player.
All others mentioned are career >10 ppg players.

People get annoyed with Clifford because he does not fulfills their wishes , and for most board it's Fultz, Isaac Gordon and Bamba on limitless usage.

Ofc he makes lot of changes when team shoots 26% for 3.

Clifford is person to blame for 1 L this year, that would probably happend anyway, against Bucks. But that's pretty much it.

But again, when you construct roster with no offensive firepower you end up forcing your coach play guys like Evan,DJ and Ross A LOT because there is no alternative.

fendilim wrote:So here's a rundown on the frequency we run pick and rolls and their PPP through 7 games.



Fultz actually has the 2nd highest frequency in pick and roll situations per game, 2nd highest pick and roll possessions next to DJ (WHY?), but he is only 4th in PPP. And highest in Turnover frequency.

All of this on the way he is being played in these situations. Below I've highlighted 3 pick and roll situations during the 1st half (typing this while I pause the replay inbetween halves on league pass.)

First highlight led to a bucket. But look at the defense sagging off him, waiting for him to drive with Powell helping out (did not only happen in this PnR situation). Which partly explains why his turnover frequency is also pretty high, other than Bamba not catching his potential assists.

Read on Twitter

Next two highlights, defenders still sag on him daring him to shoot. The 2nd video below led to poor spacing, the first to a turnover.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Defenders are cutting off his drives and freely letting him shoot it from the perimeter. Atlanta game, he had a good 1st half, then they decided to sag him in the second half, he was pretty much ineffective and only creates poor spacing.

I'm not sure why a lot of people are still complaining about us not giving him the keys to takeover the game in late game situations when this is pretty much the same story every game.

I already said he looked hesitant to go to his mid range jumper against the Mavs which he wasn't in previous games. He's shooting it ok, he needs to trust it. Otherwise he's just another guy.

Just to add on my previous post, the videos below are pick and roll possessions in the 2nd half.





Only one time did Fultz' defender go over the screen. And when they did, there were two other guys collapsing on him. The other four coverage they were daring him to shoot. The last video above he finally took the perimeter shot.


And this is pretty much why Fultz shouldn't be on the court during crunch time. They decided to double Vuc and leave Fultz' alone, and dared him to shoot.


Again, until Fultz can be a respectable perimeter shot maker, I think we will continue to see this trend again and again. He is pretty much a Rajon Rondo, except we do not have Ray Allen or Paul Pierce to stabilize the offensive spacing.

I really like Fultz, he is an amazing player, but he is only good in spurts. However , he should be given the reins only IF he becomes a respectable shooter from the perimeter..

Also our pace is 30th in the league. Should not be happening for us being such a bad halfcourt team.

fendilim wrote:Just to add on my previous post, the videos below are pick and roll possessions in the 2nd half.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Only one time did Fultz' defender go over the screen. And when they did, there were two other guys collapsing on him. The other four coverage they were daring him to shoot. The last video above he finally took the perimeter shot.


And this is pretty much why Fultz shouldn't be on the court during crunch time. They decided to double Vuc and leave Fultz' alone, and dared him to shoot.

Read on Twitter

Again, until Fultz can be a respectable perimeter shot maker, I think we will continue to see this trend again and again. He is pretty much a Rajon Rondo, except we do not have Ray Allen or Paul Pierce to stabilize the offensive spacing.

I really like Fultz, he is an amazing player, but he is only good in spurts. However , he should be given the reins only IF he becomes a respectable shooter from the perimeter..

Nice post by the way.


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Fans here would hate Popovich's substitutions as well as any other coach in the world.

No, Clifford is doing what he's supposed to be doing right now.

This is the time of the season when coaches explore rotations to find the right combinations. The Magic added two new rotation players (Fultz/Aminu), one of which is a PG...and now that PG is starting.

That PG change automatically means adjustment to many fundamental aspects of the system. That means he has to re-tweak everything...so not only does Clifford have to devise new rotations but players also have to adapt to those changes.

On top of that, several key guys are struggling, further destabilizing rotations.

Anyone else yet?

Dj was getting cooked in the 4th...still took too long to bring Fultz back in