Magic's Defense (vs Curry's):70sFan wrote:Blackmill wrote:Rewatched 1987 finals G4. Most people remember Magic's game wining hook shot from this game, but what stood out to me was his defense.
The 4th begins with the score 85-78 in favor of the Celtics. Magic had been resting for the last few minutes of the 3rd, but interestingly, Pat Riley put Magic back into the game for the last possession... to play defense? It seems so since the Lakers likely wouldn't get another shot. Anyways, let's look at the 4th quarter.
1:00:18 Magic does gamble here and leaves his man open. Possibly his only bad play of the quarter.
1:01:42 Magic switches onto Bird to deny him the ball, drains much of the shot clock doing this, then does a solid job at contesting after being bumped.
1:03:11 Magic helps on Birds cut and strips the ball, stopping a likely layup, but he bangs his knee and goes out of the game. He re-enters the game, limping noticeably at 1:05:33.
1:06:00 Magic races back in transition and stops what would have been a 2-on-1 fast break by deflecting the ball.
1:07:21 At first glance I thought Magic over helped on Dennis. But then I realized he was playing the pass to Parish, which I think was arguably the correct decision, especially since he's able to run Ainge off the 3-point line on the kick out. If Thompson is a little sharper with his rotation responsibility, this would have been a contested shot.
1:08:40 Magic is guarding two since the Lakers have doubled McHale. He does a good job closing out, forcing both Dennis and then Ainge to give up their shots, and the Celtics must take a less than ideal shot.
1:09:45 Magic covers McHale who was left open underneath the basket during Lakers rotations. He does an excellent job denying McHale the shot before rotating onto Parish and helping force a 24 second violation.
1:11:52 Magic helps on Bird and Cooper gets the block. If you watch the different angle replay at 1:12:40, you see Cooper got the block in part because Bird exposed the ball to Cooper in order to avoid Magic's block attempt.
1:12:10 Magic helps on Dennis's drive and forces a tough shot.
1:13:17 Magic does a good job fighting over Kite's screen to pressure Ainge's shot. Today the game plan would likely be to ice the screen, but I don't remember the Lakers doing that much if at all. Otherwise Magic made a high effort play fighting past Kite.
1:16:20 Magic shows good instincts by moving onto McHale, anticipating that Thompson will be the help, and he'll have help-the-helper responsibility. Bird actually misses the open pass to Dennis and instead goes for a pass to Ainge. If you watch closely, you'll see Magic's quick close out forces Bird to pull back his pass, and proceed with a handoff. Because of this, Ainge is forced into a long, not-perfectly-squared-up three rather than a cleaner spot up.
1:24:20 Magic does a good job denying the pass from Bird to Dennis, and then shading the play so that Bird can't pass to Parish who was otherwise available.
1:26:05 Magic is defending the Dennis-Parish PnR. Magic switches with Kareem and does a really good job at keeping Parish from getting deep position until Kareem can re-switch. Magic signals for Cooper to stick to Ainge, but Cooper doesn't notice initially, and both close out to Dennis. As a result the Lakers are scrambling and Bird gets an open corner three. Nonetheless good defense by Magic. If you watched just this quarter you'd think Magic was the better defender than Cooper.
1:27:37 The hook shot.
That's 12 meaningful (5-7 I'd consider very meaningful) defensive plays in the 4th quarter with some being the difference between a stop and a sure make. Magic was legitimately quick, had size and strength, plus a better motor than people give him credit for, and possessed generally great instincts. The Lakers defense this season was rotation heavy and very much a team effort, but Magic was probably the most important Laker defender in the final minutes of this game. The last game I watched of Magic was from the 1991 finals, when he looked a lot like a liability. This was a nice reminder that during his peak he could be a very positive defender.
Thanks for sharing the film analysis 70sFan!
Magic did have a good defensive quarter. I wanted to go quickly go through the rest of that same game. I didn't have time to go through the offense or every defensive possession, but I do have overall thoughts at the bottom:
Magic's Defensive Mistakes /Ineffective / Interesting Plays:1st Quarter
10:40 Bad job keeping up with off-ball screen, ends up switching but doesn’t communicate, leads to open long 2. Mistake #1.
13:50 Not a great contest against their best (non Bird) shooter, Celtics make long 2. Not great. Ineffective defense #1.
14:33 Great speed to get back, but there’s that lack of rim protection I’m concerned about for his size. Ineffective defense 2.
16:25 While struggling to get around the off-ball screen, he doesn’t notice the drive until it’s too late to help. There's the lack of off-ball awareness I mentioned. Mistake 2.
19:36 Great effort on the rebound, but couldn’t save it and didn’t aim it quite right when trying to have the ball go out of the Celtics player, which leads to a Celtics layup. Still, hard to blame him though — it was a good rebound attempt and it’s hard to aim while falling out of bounds)
… 2nd Quarter
28:37 Two lakers end up boxing out the same player which gets the Celtics an open offensive rebound and layup. Mistake, but I’d blame the other Laker, not magic.
29:54 Just like 14:33, good speed to get back but almost non-existent rim protection for his size, just a weak swipe at the ball. Ineffective defense 3.
32:43 This one’s interesting. They double ball, and the other defenders are almost zoning up (so much for illegal defense rules). Ball rotates around, Magic’s original man gets the shot, Magic’s behind the rotation and tries to recover (but the other man helps first), which takes Magic out positioning for the rebound. Still, good near-block on the next shot and positioning for the next rebound.
37:15 Rotates in to help the drive. Doesn’t get close enough to swipe at the dribbler, and has his hands too low to intercept the pass, but good rotation back to the 3 point shooter. Doesn’t jump to contest.
37:45
Another 3 point attempt from Magic’s man. Notice how Magic rarely jumps for any of these contest (for this one, last one, one before that).
… 3rd Quarter
39:05
Magic leaves his man to prevent Bird drive at first then to triple-teams McHale, who passes out and gets the Lakers in rotation. Kareem is first to recover to ball, but it’s 40 year old kareem moving in one direction… the offensive player rotates, Magic does an okay job going under on the screen to contest (higher jump this time!) but it’s a made shot. Was the triple team necessary? I can’t help but wonder if the Celtics would have gotten that good a shot without the triple team… Mistake 3.
42:45 Magic’s teammate calls for him to stop ball, but he’s too slow to rotate and the teammate has to stop. Celtics get an open shot. Magic does an okay job boxing out for Kareem’s rebound, but he still failed to rotate and gave up the open shot. Mistake 4.
… 4th Quarter
[discussed in 70sFan’s post above, with 5th Mistake at 1:00:18].
Comments: Compared to Curry's defense in my film review (
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100386706#p100386706),
they both committed the same number of Mistakes. Magic had more moments of ineffective defense, though from memory he also had more moments of effective defense. Curry for his part still had 10 effective defensive plays where he directly contributed to the ending the Cavs' possession. Of course, sample size of 1 game, so lots of uncertainty. Here's my fear with Magic's defensive reputation (among media/general public): I'm worried people are biased by the memorable moments where his size helped, while forgetting the mistakes and the ineffective defense (compared to Curry whose mistakes are a lot fresher).
Overall, Magic liked to sag off quite a bit when his man had the ball at the perimeter. He liked to roam on defense, which could create good help opportunities or get him in early rebounding position, while covering for his slow lateral foot speed (which was visible on film). However, these positioning gambles would also come at the cost of leaving Magic slow to recover to his original man. Magic would also have moments of surprisingly ineffective rim protection or low-effort perimeter contests, despite his size.
Time Machine: Some of this worked in that era (which played far closer to the rim), but would change in today’s era. It would be impossible to sag off so much and be so slow to rotate back to the perimeter now, and Magic's slower lateral foot speed would be more of a liability as a result. The Celtics abused this occasionally, but it would clearly get abused more with better shooting and more intentional mismatch-hunting in the playoffs. Compare to Curry, on the other hand, who had fewer foot-speed issues in my tracking while playing in a much harder era for perimeter defense.
Magic’s roaming tendencies might be helped by more active zone defenses today. But he’d need to be better at getting around screens -- his lack of mobility /mobility-mistakes even when going under every screen is worrying, as is his lack of ball-awareness when following off-ball players. Curry certainly had better mobility getting around screens, and he had better awareness when tracking his man off-ball, at least to my eye. I'm also concerned by Magic's switching communication mistakes; defensive communication (e.g. on switches) is another strength of Curry's, and this is yet another case where Curry performs better on a defensive facet, despite playing in the harder era.
To me at least, the film analysis supports the qualitative argument I made earlier: Magic would struggle more defensively in this era. Relative to era, they have similar value on defense.
