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By John Denton
Jan. 30, 2016
ORLANDO – One moment on Friday night in Boston, Orlando Magic rookie Mario Hezonja was out on the break sprinting past Evan Turner and dunking on Jonas Jerebko’s head and the next moment he was getting beaten down the floor by Turner for a coast-to-coast buzzer beater.
Thus far, Hezonja’s flashy, but uneven play has been much like the Magic’s up-and-down season. At one point, Orlando was 19-13 and coming off a stellar 10-win December and the next they are stuck in the throes of an eight-game losing streak and mired in a January swoon where they have dropped 12 of 13 games.
Hezonja, the No. 5 pick in last June’s NBA Draft, has played more meaningful minutes of late, but his progress thus far can be measured more in inches instead of noticeable leaps and bounds.
The Magic (20-25) are in search of an injection of life and production right now and, at times, Hezonja seems poised to give it to them what with his fearless shooting, his passing vision and his sneaky athleticism at the rim. Other times, Hezonja’s lapses defensively limit just how long the team can keep him on the floor, especially when foes usually target him within seconds of him checking into the game.
To his credit, the 20-year-old Hezonja has remained strong mentally and patient with the process, knowing full well that the Magic and coach Scott Skiles are taking a long-term view toward his overall development.
``Every day for me, it’s step by step and I still have to learn both sides (offense and defense),’’ Hezonja said. ``Coach (Skiles) wants that for me and the same for me (wanting that). I want to be good at every detail, so every practice is another step for me.
``Maybe a lot of people don’t understand that when (Skiles) says it’s a long-term project,’’ added Hezonja, showing the maturity of someone well beyond his rookie status. ``But that’s true and I’m totally fine with that. He’s right, I understand it and I’m working really, really hard.’’
Orlando will have to work really, really hard to flip the script and beat Boston on Sunday night at the Amway Center after getting throttled 113-94 by the Celtics on Friday. It is rare during the NBA season for the same teams to play one another in consecutive games, but that will be the case for a Magic team that is desperate for the kind of win that could sling-shot its season back on track.
The Magic beat the Celtics by 19 points when the two teams met two months ago in Orlando, but much has changed since then. Boston, winners of five straight and 10 of 12, is one of the hottest teams in the NBA, while the Magic have fallen completely out of the playoff picture in the jumbled Eastern Conference following a disastrous stretch in January.
``We’ve got to be ready for Sunday and it’s another game to try and fix this slide, this funk that we’re in,’’ Magic guard Victor Oladipo said. ``We had better be ready to play or it’s going to be the same result (as Friday night).’’
Hezonja is hoping for a better result from the second half of the season – both for the team and for himself personally. After playing extensively in the preseason, he has been on the floor slightly less than 14 minutes a game on average. He’s shown flashes offensively while averaging 4.5 points and 1.6 rebounds a game, but he hasn’t been able to establish much of a rhythm because of his defensive struggles.
Rather than simply throwing Hezonja out on the floor and allowing him to play through his mistakes, Skiles has tried to hold the rookie accountable for his actions. When he’s allowed dribble penetration, gotten exposed with back-door cuts or has been out of position, Skiles has taken the guard/forward out of the game so he can be given instruction on how he is expected to play on both ends of the floor. Skiles said the hope is that by building good habits now it will pay off in the long run for the first-year NBA player.
``That would be a good word – a base or a foundation, that’s what we’re trying to build for him,’’ Skiles said. ``It’s easy to see his talent; that’s easy for anybody to see. He has the best vision on our team and he’s one of the best shooters. But we think it’s best for him long-term to really build on a foundation instead of just kind of living with what he does out there.
``We’ve tried to talk with him every day and work with him every day,’’ Skiles continued. ``Like I said after the (Tuesday) game, he was helpful offensively, but he still had some critical defensive breakdowns. Mario hasn’t said this, but he could easily say, ``Well, nobody is guarding anybody right now.’ But the point is that we look at him as a really good player long term and we want to make sure that in the first few months of his career that he’s learning the right way to play.’’
Hezonja said Skiles’ tough-love approach with him during film sessions and practices has been ``useful’’ because ``they just want you to be your best.’’ He knows that to fully live up to his potential as a player he must get to the point defensively where he is as fluid and aware as he is when the ball is in his hands and he’s lining up a 3-point shot.
``I don’t want to just be on the court one possession or a few possessions or 15 minutes and not doing anything,’’ said Hezonja, who was one point shy of his career high on Tuesday when he scored 11 points against the Milwaukee Bucks. ``I want to help my team do the best. If that’s 48 minutes of running, that’s what I’ve got to do.’’
Hezonja has said that his close friendship with point guard Elfrid Payton has helped him make the transition from his native Croatia and Spain – where he played professionally the past three years – to the United States and the NBA. The two are usually inseparable when off the floor, and they’ll both be experiencing NBA All-Star Weekend together in mid-February when they compete in the BBVA Compass Rising Stars challenge for first- and second-year NBA players.
Skiles said that while Hezonja has had his ups and downs early in his first season in the NBA, he is more convinced than ever that the sweet-shooting guard is some day going to be an elite player. Skiles considers basketball IQ and professional preparedness to be major factors in a player’s development and he said the rookie has all the physical and mental tools needed to be a key contributor when his game matures.
``He’s very easy to deal with and very easy to talk basketball with and he really knows what’s going on in games,’’ Skiles said. ``There are players who have a running tape in their heads and you can say, `Do you remember the last time we played Sacramento in the fourth quarter and they ran this (play) and we did that?’ Most of the players don’t have that, but Mario has it. So it makes it easy to discuss the game with him or look at tape with him going through a game. He has a good awareness level and that’s another reason why we’re so high on him as a player.’’