Official Gamethread: ORL vs. CHI

[Catalina Maria 64]

To add -- last night was telling of this fact:

 

FRYE is a big reason for our loss because it was only then that the other team built that lead. When Frye was on the floor it reminded me of last year and how team's would build big leads on us and we'd have to work hard to come back. I didn't realize until last night how Frye's presence really stagnates our game and his missed open threes are such a Debbie Downer on this team. Frye is by far Hennigan's worst move followed by the Nicholson acquisition. Those bigs need to go ASAP and bring on some fierce and nasty to take the place of soft and pansy. Kinda wish O'Quinn was still here. How is he playing these days?

[Catalina Maria 64]

Kyle O'Quinn at 9.3 PPG and 7.7 RBG ... He can still play. We r missing some of that ...

[O_SteveO 106]

Kyle O'Quinn at 9.3 PPG and 7.7 RBG ... He can still play. We r missing some of that ...

Stop

[~O~ 565]

We've only played one bad game, and it was away against a team that was home and was supposed to win. We'd be 2-1 right now if the dice fell in the right place for us. To add, the glaring stuff right now is missed free throws and TO. The rebounding differential hasn't been that bad believe it or not despite our team looking small on paper. Our defense has been great, even in the Chicago game, but the offense has been inconsistent. When Payton came out lackluster last night it showed, and when Frye played -- PERIOD -- his presence on both ends of the floor allowed Chicago to build a commanding lead and momentum.

 

If anything, last night's game showed us Smith could be a force in that second unit to provide consistent play on both ends.

 

Payton is key. He's got to be on every minute of the game at minimally running the offense because he's such a poor shooter. If not, he needs to go because he becomes an Achilles heel and we'd never get past the earlier rounds of a playoff series.

 

 

 

Although the Magic are top ten in rebounding, they however are top 6 in opponent second chance points (15.6). Even when the Magic clogged the paint, the ball would end up in an opponents hands because the opponent was much more eager to retrieve the ball. In other scenarios, especially okc, the Magic have a tough time coming up with the ball in loose ball situations when its directly in front of them.

 

It is one bad game...but its one bad game we should have won. The Magic have 79 games to go. We're lucky the season is still long.

Lets get real and critical here:

 

The trend from the past two seasons along stretches of games in which the Magic faced superior opponents, they would lose those games rather closely. The Magic would lose these games by a small margin. After these very games the following happened.....

 

.......Our assortment of losing streaks came to notoriously awful lottery teams that the Magic were not only losing to but being blown out by a wide margin. Teams like New York, Detroit, the Lakers, Indy, Milly, Denny, clippers twice, the pacers three times, the wizards twice, swept dallas, and various other females. All the middle back teams would dominate us and flew afterwards. All confidence in themselves were lost and took a stretch of 5 to 15 games to retrieve from the 35,000 foot trench it was buried in.

 

We set various records lows that no one here would ever want to remember and have tarnished the Magic's history.

 

 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/ORL/2015.html.

 

We haven't done anything in over two years. Why should any team respect the Orlando Magic?

 

 

The past two games is one of the major reasons why no one wants to watch us and the Magic are losing love from their fans. We failed to make an impression at home twice. Casual fans can look at box score with the Magic in the lead by 15 or more and say comfortably that we won't win or hold that lead. Do you know how annoying that is. Do you guys want that to be the Magic's perception? Its rather harsh but true.

 

We need to win games and convincingly. Not later or at the last few games of the this regular season but right now. These moments can't wait. The moment was here 3 games ago and is still here since its early in the season. The Magic as an individual team entity, need to become person that can be counted on. Individually, these players need to perform and be prepared for the worst. The worst continue to happen and will happen going forward and the Magic need to persevere.

 

Feels like deja vu that I actually made these very statements on the lack of urgency the Magic players had at beginning of last season and we ended up losing the season anyway. Its scary. Maybe its a tell-tale sign. 0-4 to start. 7-13 in 20 games. 13-27 in 40 games, 19-41 in 60 games.

 

Winners don't wait for success. You practice your lines for success and walk up to her confidently ready for rejection. Once you impress with success, you marry that woman.

[Catman 380]

Odd game really. My first thoughts were that CHI is just a much more veteran team than we are.

 

So far in 3 games, I feel like Gordon is our best player when it comes to consistent, 2 way on court production.

 

Our back court was exposed tonight for poor shooting. That's how it really started. The Bulls saw Vuc abusing Gasol 1 v1 and doubled him. That took away Nik and we could not make the Bulls pay. Hence Payton taking a seat.

 

If we did trade Fournier I think we'd be in trouble right now because he is our most efficient player on offense. The guy has a gift for finishing at the rim.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

if you want another reason we lost its due to poor weakside defense.

 

Not sure who is to blame but Harris constantly left Mirotic open on the opposite corner and sat in the paint. not sure if this is skiles telling him to do that or if harris is just out of position but you harris cant recover by helping that deep. (it wasn't just harris, that play just sticks out in my mind).

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Odd game really. My first thoughts were that CHI is just a much more veteran team than we are.

 

So far in 3 games, I feel like Gordon is our best player when it comes to consistent, 2 way on court production.

 

Our back court was exposed tonight for poor shooting. That's how it really started. The Bulls saw Vuc abusing Gasol 1 v1 and doubled him. That took away Nik and we could not make the Bulls pay. Hence Payton taking a seat.

 

If we did trade Fournier I think we'd be in trouble right now because he is our most efficient player on offense. The guy has a gift for finishing at the rim.

 

Agree on Gordon which kind of shows why we're losing. We were in the first two games because He hit several shots. We were out of last night's game because he went on like a 0-4 streak or something like that in the fourth quarter when we just got back in the game.

 

still good overall.

 

Fournier depends on who we'd be getting back.

[Magicman28 295]

My thoughts are

 

1. They need to set it in their minds that losing at home is not happening. All the good teams do this. It may take acquiring a vet who has that mentality because I really don't see that here, YET. Skiles is obvious the leader right now but you got to have someone with experience who's on the court, in a uniform, who can not only play, but can also be vocal. I don't see that here. A lot of young guys who are playing not to lose.

 

2. AG needs to start. Period. I know Tobias is your money man so you might have to put him at the 3 and bring Fournier off the bench, which I know isn't fair to Fournier who's been playing well but AG needs to be at the 4 spot. He's the only guy who's grabbing boards AND blocking shots and unlike Dedmon, keeps defenses honest. Something has to be done there though. Tobias/Fournier/Vuc just isn't working defensively as an unit.

 

 

 

 

This game, we just looked like all our energy was zapped from us. Probably from the OKC game which was entertaining but heartbreaking. This is why I feel we need to acquire some veteran leadership. We are so young, so talented but in order to shift from an bottom feeder to a playoff team, it has to start mentally. Acquiring a vet (doesn't have to be some over the hill player) who can be productive and vocal, would be ideal. Imo, the same reasons why we got Horace Grant.

 

Oh, and everyone should be spending extra time in the gym shooting. Playing the greatest defense in the world is priority but if a team can't consistently score from outside, especially with a group of slashers, it's going to be a loooooong day because opposing teams are just going to clog the lane forcing them to brick shots.

 

 

 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

My thoughts are

 

1. They need to set it in their minds that losing at home is not happening. All the good teams do this. It may take acquiring a vet who has that mentality because I really don't see that here, YET. Skiles is obvious the leader right now but you got to have someone with experience who's on the court, in a uniform, who can not only play, but can also be vocal. I don't see that here. A lot of young guys who are playing not to lose.

 

2. AG needs to start. Period. I know Tobias is your money man so you might have to put him at the 3 and bring Fournier off the bench, which I know isn't fair to Fournier who's been playing well but AG needs to be at the 4 spot. He's the only guy who's grabbing boards AND blocking shots and unlike Dedmon, keeps defenses honest. Something has to be done there though. Tobias/Fournier/Vuc just isn't working defensively as an unit.

 

 

 

 

This game, we just looked like all our energy was zapped from us. Probably from the OKC game which was entertaining but heartbreaking. This is why I feel we need to acquire some veteran leadership. We are so young, so talented but in order to shift from an bottom feeder to a playoff team, it has to start mentally. Acquiring a vet (doesn't have to be some over the hill player) who can be productive and vocal, would be ideal. Imo, the same reasons why we got Horace Grant.

 

Oh, and everyone should be spending extra time in the gym shooting. Playing the greatest defense in the world is priority but if a team can't consistently score from outside, especially with a group of slashers, it's going to be a loooooong day because opposing teams are just going to clog the lane forcing them to brick shots.

 

I can assure you the team isn't sitting there during timeouts in the fourth quarter thinking "you know what guys, its not that big of a deal if we lose this one. the fans will understand."

 

Mindset and effort are crutches that fans use to complain about losses when they dont understand what the hell they're actually talking about.

 

In reality, the reason we're losing is very simple. We're shooting 29.3 from three and 40.2 from the field overall. thats good for 23rd in the league in both cases. Increase that shooting by 5% in both cases and we're winning games. Hell, 5% from 3 is another 4 made threes (or 12 points). Considering we've lost the three games by a combined 9 points, there you go.

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

I can assure you the team isn't sitting there during timeouts in the fourth quarter thinking "you know what guys, its not that big of a deal if we lose this one. the fans will understand."

 

Mindset and effort are crutches that fans use to complain about losses when they dont understand what the hell they're actually talking about.

 

In reality, the reason we're losing is very simple. We're shooting 29.3 from three and 40.2 from the field overall. thats good for 23rd in the league in both cases. Increase that shooting by 5% in both cases and we're winning games. Hell, 5% from 3 is another 4 made threes (or 12 points). Considering we've lost the three games by a combined 9 points, there you go.

Yeah, we're shooting 29.3% from 3, but we're holding the opponent to 26.5%.

 

We're shooting 40.2% from the field overall, but we're holding the opponent to 41.3%.

 

We're turning the ball over 15.3 times per game, but forcing 16.7 opponent turnovers.

 

The biggest discrepancy over 3 games is free throws. The opponents are taking and making 6 more per game.

 

http://www.hoopsstat...m/profile/16/22

[~O~ 565]

The Magic are stuck in limbo. I just rewatched this game.

 

The Magic did everything late defensively to be capable of winning that game last night but did everything wrong offensively to keep themselves out of reach. They had every type of chance they could receive.

 

The Bulls were shut down the last 4 to 6 minutes and didn't lose the game because The Magic are incapable of winning games handed to them. The Bulls basically pulled down their pants and said "here's our ass. Come kick it." That is irritating.

 

McDermott embarrassed us last night and I wasn't surprised. Prior to that game, he looked like he had improved offensively and is a sleeper player. He's also extremely handsome which will also spawn hatred for him around the league.

 

Everyone else for the bulls shot like **** and played like ****. We shot better than them and shot like **** and played like ****.

 

I noticed the lack of energy early in the game. Going through the motions with no intentions of making adjustments or playing with intensity. It was a wasted game that was winnable. The Bulls were extremely passive and disinterested in playing us. Our presence lulled them to sleep.

 

Aaron Gordon, who didn't shoot that bad, probably played the best..yet again. His shots were high percentage, make or miss. Fournier, Gordon, and Oladipo were more unphased by the other night than I thought they were. Elfrid, Harris and Vuc were another story. Frye cost us and playing Napier helped us.

 

 

 

The entire issue with this team right now is shooting and making. I've beaten this drum since the start of the preseason. Let me go into detail and say that its not only open shots. the Magic have been considerably lucky that individual teammates have cleaned up a misses like Aaron Gordon. The Magic have missed a ton of first chance buckets and have gotten second chances due to athleticism or wild bricks. We need our offensive rebounding to go down. We need to make first chance buckets. 1 and done buckets.

 

When I see any of our players take shots, their form or urgency to get the shot off is lackluster. We need a shooting coach to instill some sense of of competence on the offensive end. Hezonja is the only player that seems like he wants to make all his shots off with form and/or takes his shot at with an urgency to make. Our other players seem to take their time or aren't confident in their shot to begin with. There has been too many possessions where a player has shot the ball with poor form which leads to airballs or bricks. Last season, we shot air balls every single game.

 

If t-mac was here, he would be all over our players for shooting like ****. That's a fun fact because t-mac despised when his teammates shot airballs or banked shots in.

[Magicman28 295]

I can assure you the team isn't sitting there during timeouts in the fourth quarter thinking "you know what guys, its not that big of a deal if we lose this one. the fans will understand."

 

Mindset and effort are crutches that fans use to complain about losses when they dont understand what the hell they're actually talking about.

 

In reality, the reason we're losing is very simple. We're shooting 29.3 from three and 40.2 from the field overall. thats good for 23rd in the league in both cases. Increase that shooting by 5% in both cases and we're winning games. Hell, 5% from 3 is another 4 made threes (or 12 points). Considering we've lost the three games by a combined 9 points, there you go.

 

 

 

 

 

I can assure you they are not doing that either. I can pull up bunch of studies from Neurologists, Psychologists, Theologists, and so on who can verify how important mindset is. One does not need to go to such exaggerations like you did, on what comments the team is making in timeouts, to prove for or against. It's quite simply a goal and one who has a desired goal and the will, will generally succeed. You take a unit of others and combine that mindset, the possibility to achieve such goal is increased. A main goal for this season was to the playoffs correct? Well...

 

Btw, my last sentence also runs parallel with yours. Shooting/execution needs to continue to be worked on. We don't need to score 130 points per game, but we're aren't going to win too many games with shooting percentages that low.