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TrueMagicFan07

Magic Vs. Cavs - Wednesday, Oct. 23rd at 7:00 P.M.

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4 minutes ago, Soul Bro said:

I’d give Clifford a “C” last night. While I’m grateful for the win, his rotations were a mess and the team was sloppy. It’s hard to get in a rhythm when you have no rhyme. Let’s clean this up and go get some more wins!

I agree

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2 hours ago, ?4thewin said:

The only way he'll make them is if he shoots himself out of this. We have videos of him making them in practice. If he never shoots them the defense will drop down into the paint and help off him. But if he can even shoot 30% it will move the defense just a few feet closer to him off ball and change the geometry of the court. 

Plus there's a confidence component. 

Good point. However, I am not sure this is a situation like Fournier, where he has proven himself to be pretty good from the outside, but I get your point. I guess because his shot looks so ugly and different from how he shoots the other balls that are closer to the basket, I am concerned that he is going to reinjure himself. I realize teams don't have tape on him and will adjust to him when they do, but it seemed like night and day for us when he was on the floor. Once our other guys learn to keep their head on a swivel for the unexpected pass, I am hopeful our offense will improve. Fultz's start last night was much better than I expected, wasn't it?. I am excited to see where he is going to take us! 

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6 minutes ago, Just a regular Magic fan said:

Good point. However, I am not sure this is a situation like Fournier, where he has proven himself to be pretty good from the outside, but I get your point. I guess because his shot looks so ugly and different from how he shoots the other balls that are closer to the basket, I am concerned that he is going to reinjure himself. I realize teams don't have tape on him and will adjust to him when they do, but it seemed like night and day for us when he was on the floor. Once our other guys learn to keep their head on a swivel for the unexpected pass, I am hopeful our offense will improve. Fultz's start last night was much better than I expected, wasn't it?. I am excited to see where he is going to take us! 

It was a little bit better than expected from a production standpoint. 

His passing is just so much better than I thought it'd be. He was supposed to be more Jamal Murray-ish but he plays like Jason Kidd. Just full command of the offense when he's on the court. Calm with the ball. Stoic to the point that he looks like he's not even trying. But the vision he has and the ability to thread passes through defenders is just unreal. 

It's not like he's the best passer in the league or anything but it's very possible he's on the short list for best passer in team history which probably belongs to Skiles right now. 

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It's always a little sloppy the first few games of the year, even with camp the starters aren't really ready for their "normal" minutes; nobody is in mid-season form yet. I also think that Clifford is still tweaking his rotations. Out of his current 13 man roster (not counting the 2-way players), he has 12 guys who arguably deserve minutes; which is both a good thing from a depth perspective, and a bad thing from a minutes/rotation perspective.  Right now the MCW/Fultz backcourt isn't really working, as they are too similar in style and neither is particularly good off the ball/spotting up. I think he is hoping that Fultz will start to show a little more of an outside shot, which will allow him to play MCW more. I think it is actually a fairly subtle way to see if Markelle can take that step without putting too much pressure on him. If his shot doesn't start improving, then I think we will see MCW riding the bench more, and Iwundu pick up some more wing minutes. It feels good to have some options. Right now Iwundu, Birch, and Frazier seem to be the end of the bench; which stinks for them, but there are only so many minutes per game. 

5 positions x 48 minutes/game = 240 minutes

Assuming your top six are all going to get about 27-28 minutes per game = 162-168 minutes  (Augustin, Fournier, Ross, Isaac, Gordon, Vucevic)

Next assume your next three are going to get about 20 minutes per game = 60 minutes (Fultz, Aminu, Bamba)

That only leaves you with 12-18 minutes per game, and based on the players listed above, those minutes are going to have to be primarily on the wing.

Neither Vucevic nor Bamba can play the PF, so that means your C minutes are gone, so Birch only gets spot minutes if someone is in foul trouble.

Isaac, Gordon, and Aminu account for all of the PF minutes, and adding in Fournier and Ross, approximately 82 of the 96 minutes at the SG/SF positions. That only leaves the 48 PG minutes and about 14 wing minutes to fill with DJ, Fultz, and whoever your 10th man is.

I think if you are going to fill it with MCW, then either Fultz or MCW has to play with DJ on the court as the "off-the-ball" de facto SG. If you can't play that way for match-up reasons, then I see Iwundu coming in to fill a few of the SF minutes (those 14 can be "moved" from SG to SF by how you play Fournier and Ross)

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1 hour ago, ML6 said:

Get ready to be on the MCW train for a while folks

ML6, what I am about to say is not directed at you, but it is for the posters who want to kick MCW to the curb.

I agree with coach Clifford in his assessment of MCW. It's early, the season just started. I mentioned in another post how MCW  was a key (not the only key) late last season for helping the team make a run for the playoffs. His hustle, defense, pushing the ball up/down the court, stealing balls by diving for them on the floor. . .and drawing fouls driving to the basket.

MCW made contributions offensively as well. I would be very sad if MCW was not included in the rotation. Fultz was exciting to watch last night as well.

 Btw, when it comes to DJ, one of my favorites. . .DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

                                        2j9qaz.jpg

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15 minutes ago, TrueMagicFan07 said:

ML6, what I am about to say is not directed at you, but it is for the posters who want to kick MCW to the curb.

I agree with coach Clifford in his assessment of MCW. It's early, the season just started. I mentioned in another post how MCW  was a key (not the only key) late last season for helping the team make a run for the playoffs. His hustle, defense, pushing the ball up/down the court, stealing balls by diving for them on the floor. . .and drawing fouls driving to the basket.

MCW made contributions offensively as well. I would be very sad if MCW was not included in the rotation. Fultz was exciting to watch last night as well.

 Btw, when it comes to DJ, one of my favorites. . .DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

                                        2j9qaz.jpg

I like the energy, hustle, aggressive play, and defense that MCW gives us, and certainly don't want us to "kick him to the curb". Having said that, I think Fultz gives us most of the same things, but with slightly better offense/slightly worse defense. I am not sure that we can play them together, though as I pointed out, doing so early and giving Fultz time to work on his outside shooting in game conditions may be what Clifford has in mind. I think we will see a little less of three point guards, and a little more of Iwundu as the season progresses and as match-ups demand, but we will see. I think we are in pretty good shape from a depth/next man up in case of injury perspective. I really think that Iwundu and Birch contributed greatly to our finish last season, so I am a little sad to see either of them relegated to the end of the bench; but it is really almost impossible to go 12 deep on a regular basis. 

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1 hour ago, TrueMagicFan07 said:

ML6, what I am about to say is not directed at you, but it is for the posters who want to kick MCW to the curb.

I agree with coach Clifford in his assessment of MCW. It's early, the season just started. I mentioned in another post how MCW  was a key (not the only key) late last season for helping the team make a run for the playoffs. His hustle, defense, pushing the ball up/down the court, stealing balls by diving for them on the floor. . .and drawing fouls driving to the basket.

MCW made contributions offensively as well. I would be very sad if MCW was not included in the rotation. Fultz was exciting to watch last night as well.

 Btw, when it comes to DJ, one of my favorites. . .DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

                                        2j9qaz.jpg

Minutes are a finite resource. 

Fultz and augustin split the point guard minutes. 

MCW got 14 minutes. The vast majority of the minutes he was given were taken from Ross. 

That's what we're talking about when we say MCW shouldn't play. In a typical game we should be maximizing the minutes of our most valuable players. 

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5 hours ago, ML6 said:

Get ready to be on the MCW train for a while folks

We can't just look at one game because of sample size, so it will be interesting to see how MCW looks after we get some games under our belt. Maybe someone with more experience than me can break down some film and let us know what they see. 

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42 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

Minutes are a finite resource. 

Fultz and augustin split the point guard minutes. 

MCW got 14 minutes. The vast majority of the minutes he was given were taken from Ross. 

That's what we're talking about when we say MCW shouldn't play. In a typical game we should be maximizing the minutes of our most valuable players. 

Realizing that it is only one game, here is the minutes distribution:

    
STARTERS    MIN
A. GordonPF    29
J. IsaacPF    24
N. VucevicC    34
D.J. AugustinPG    25
E. FournierSG    28
BENCH    MIN
A. AminuPF    29
M. BambaC    14
M. FultzPG    23
M. Carter-WilliamsPG    14
T. RossSG    19
 

So based on that we had 

62 minutes of PG, 47 minutes of SG, 0 minutes of SF, 82 minutes of PF, and 48 minutes of C. Now obviously that means 34 minutes of SF were played by a PF, and those "extra" PG minutes were really at the SG and Fournier/Ross spent some of their time as the SF. Also there is a little rounding, but ?4TW point holds true. The majority of the "extra" minutes played by a third PG came out of what would normally be Ross' time. It will be very interesting to see what happens going forward. 

Another point to watch will be the minute distributions between Gordon/Isaac/Aminu. I was surprised that Aminu had that many. I was also surprised he played Vuc for 34, since he said our "guys aren't ready for big minutes".  

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3 hours ago, jmmagicfan said:

I like the energy, hustle, aggressive play, and defense that MCW gives us, and certainly don't want us to "kick him to the curb". Having said that, I think Fultz gives us most of the same things, but with slightly better offense/slightly worse defense. I am not sure that we can play them together, though as I pointed out, doing so early and giving Fultz time to work on his outside shooting in game conditions may be what Clifford has in mind. I think we will see a little less of three point guards, and a little more of Iwundu as the season progresses and as match-ups demand, but we will see. I think we are in pretty good shape from a depth/next man up in case of injury perspective. I really think that Iwundu and Birch contributed greatly to our finish last season, so I am a little sad to see either of them relegated to the end of the bench; but it is really almost impossible to go 12 deep on a regular basis. 

 

Very well put. I agree with everything you said. I'm not suggesting that MCW should play ahead of Fultz or play more minutes. Like some have already mentioned, Fultz and MCW should not play together. I think it should either be DJ and Fultz or DJ and MCW on the court at the same time.

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