Orlando Magic: This Is Going To Be Fun!
By Luke Duffy
In the end, the night finished like it was supposed to and the Orlando Magic lost their opening game of the season away to the New Orleans Pelicans. The reality though, is that there was much to dissect and talk about after a Nikola Vucevic inspired Magic outfit eventually fell 101-84 to their Western Conference opponents.
Some things unfolded like we knew that they would, and other facets of the game surprised, so lets take a look at why this wasn’t the worst start to the season for Orlando. The final score certainly doesn’t tell the whole story.
Let’s begin with the score line though to address the early positives from losing a game like this. The difference between a playoff bound team and that of an up and comer is the former’s ability to hang tough in games and eventually see them out.
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Young and inexperienced teams like Orlando don’t have the know how or depth to compete for 48 minutes, and that was the case in New Orleans. For two and a half quarters, this Magic team looked really good. They shot the ball well, had a huge game from Vucevic to that point, and were defending everybody with the exception of Davis well.
But they just didn’t have the composure or know how off the bench when the starters took to the pine for some rest to win the game.
Make no mistake, the Pelicans don’t have a ton of that either. But what they did boast was an inspiring Davis, who surely is one of the 10 best players in the league at this point? Davis had 26 points, 17 rebounds, nine (yes nine) blocks and three steals, and he was without doubt the difference maker.
However, Ryan Anderson was also on fire, scoring some 3-pointers in bunches to effectively help his team pull away from the young Magic.
Despite Davis having a beast of a night, both Vucevic and Kyle O’Quinn actually did a decent job of guarding him if you can believe that. Defending has been a weak point for Vucevic in the past, but against Davis and the Pelicans he was at least trying to make it tough for Davis.
O’Quinn, to his credit, was working away in the paint as he always does for this team. In fact, on this showing, opposing teams will think twice about cutting into the lane against this team. Both bigs were physical and tough to break down on the possessions where Davis wasn’t finishing no matter how many defenders Orlando threw on top of him.
To New Orleans’ credit though, Omer Asik was also doing work on the inside and it was great to watch these four big guys go at it all night.
It gets better as well. Forward Tobias Harris was vocal, stepped into some nice 3-point shots and poured in 25 points throughout the game. I’ve spoken here before about how I felt Harris could really step in and be a leader for this team with both Victor Oladipo and Channing Frye out through injury.
One game is a terribly small sample size, but it was so encouraging to see him score both inside and out, and generally be plugged into everything his team was doing.
Other unexpected positives included the all around play of Elfrid Payton and just what Aaron Gordon can bring to this team. Starting with Payton, it looked like the guy just didn’t want to shoot, like at all. But that’s OK, because he was teeing up his teammates for good looks all night.
Although he only scored four points, he did also have seven assists and five rebounds, and his calm manner of play trickled through to the rest of the team. With Gordon, he was pretty much as advertized. However he did make his first NBA 3-point effort, before air balling the next one.
Defensively he was a liability, but that can be taught if he’s willing to learn. Bottom line though, if he adds a reliable 3-point shot to go with his athletic skills, he could be such a dangerous player to face.
Vucevic deserves a moment of praise all to himself, he had a double-double less than midway through the second quarter of this one. He finished with 15 points and 23 rebounds and was this team’s best player.
Even if the projected rise in salary cap as a result of the new television deal isn’t as much as expected, his four-year, $54 million deal still figures to be a great one at this early point. He can do so much, from the pretty passes to the dirty rebounding, and this team will benefit massively from this.
So while this was a loss to start the year, it’s clear this team has something. Most other people were watching a great match between the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks, and Anthony Davis also had his way with Orlando. But the few who watched this from a Magic perspective have to have been happy enough with what they saw.
They were also missing two of their best six players in Victor Oladipo and Channing Frye. Yes, they’re not deep enough and will lose a lot of games. But enjoy this team, already it seems they could be better than advertized in a weaker Eastern Conference.