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The Five Most Interesting Teams in the NBA in Week 6Orlando Magic (9-9)
And now, for the last team to beat LeBron’s Lakers — one clearly determined to make a mockery of the Five Most Interesting Teams of the Week.
After hanging 131 and 130 on the Lakers and Knicks, respectively, last weekend, the Magic ranked 12th in the NBA in non-garbage-time offensive efficiency, according to Cleaning the Glass. (They dropped to 18th, just a tick below league average, after Tuesday’s loss to Toronto.) That, frankly, is astonishing. Orlando doesn’t employ a bona-fide-star offensive focal point, though center Nikola Vucevic — who’s averaging 20 points, 11.2 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game while shooting a scorching 55.4 percent from the field and 42.2 percent from 3-point range — might beg to differ. And it has handed nearly all of its minutes to point guard to D.J. Augustin, whose ceiling tops out at “serviceable but unremarkable veteran,” and Jerian Grant, who aspires to that lofty goal. So how the hell are the Magic doing this?
Knowing his lead guards are caretakers and not rainmakers, Steve Clifford has democratized the Magic attack, emboldening Orlando’s bigs and wings to take on a larger share of the playmaking responsibility within the confines of the half-court offense. Not everybody’s seeing more of the ball; Aaron Gordon’s touches are down a bit from last season, Jonathon Simmons’s are down by a lot, and the Magic actually average fewer passes per game than last season. But nearly everybody seems to be doing more with the ball when they get it.
Orlando ranks in the top five in assists, secondary assists (the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the basket), and points created via direct assist. Gordon, Simmons, Vucevic, and swingmen Evan Fournier and Terrence Ross are all assisting on their teammates’ baskets more frequently than ever. The starting five of Vucevic, Gordon, Fournier, Augustin, and second-year small forward Wesley Iwundu has locked into a dynamite rhythm, scoring a blistering 120.3 points per 100 possessions, the highest offensive rating of any lineup in the league that has logged at least 100 minutes.
Gordon and Vucevic have developed a nice chemistry on the secondary break, with Gordon looking for opportunities to feed the big man when he runs the floor and seals his defender deep in the post. Fournier’s a crafty facilitator in the pick-and-roll with a great sense of how and when to lead his roller into scoring chances. Clifford loves to get Ross rocketing out of the right corner for a dribble handoff heading to the middle of the floor, betting that the sight of him barreling into the lane will force a defender to help, creating either a dump-off pass to an uncovered big underneath for a layup or an easy kickout to a shooter in the weakside corner. Even young bigs Jonathan Isaac and Mo Bamba have the freedom to work from the elbows and look to make high-low feeds.
The Magic move a lot — only six teams cover more ground per game on offense — and they love to roast sleeping defenses with off-ball cuts:
Orlando isn’t among the league’s highest-volume 3-point shooting teams; it ranks 15th in makes per game and 15th in attempts. But proper spacing combined with a commitment to making the extra pass has resulted in a lot of clean looks. Eighty-nine-point-four percent of the Magic’s 3-point attempts have been either open or wide open, according to NBA.com’s shot charting, and while they’ve shot a below-average 35.2 percent on those tries, you’d imagine that number will tick up if they keep creating them:
Only three teams take a higher share of their shots from the midrange than the Magic, and only three take fewer attempts at the rim, so the Magic offense could taper off if Vucevic stops looking like a one-man army and Augustin stops hitting 46.3 percent of his 3s. (That’s especially true if Orlando can’t start getting more free points; no team has a lower free throw rate.) But while a final-second loss to the East-leading Raptors on Tuesday dropped them to .500, there just seems to be a certain crispness and professionalism to this Orlando team that previous iterations have lacked. If they can keep the ball and body movement up while keeping their turnovers down, a trademark of Clifford’s Charlotte teams, the Magic might prove that their strong offensive start is more than just smoke and mirrors.
