By John Denton
Dec. 6, 2016
WASHINGTON D.C. – In one fell swoop tonight, the Orlando Magic can accomplish two very impressive tasks: They can cap their nine-night, five-game trip with a flourish and they can topple troublesome rival Washington.
Orlando (9-12) appears to have turned around its season around on this road trip, winning in San Antonio, Philadelphia and Detroit. Only a faltering over the final six minutes of a game last Thursday in Memphis – one where they led by 14 points and lost by one – stands between then and a 4-0 start to this odyssey that has spanned more than a week.
Washington, which beat Brooklyn 118-113 on Monday to improve to 7-12, has long been a problem for the Magic. The Wizards beat the Magic 12 straight times from the 2013-14 season through the 2015-16 season.
Orlando finally got over the hump against them in the first meeting of the season, winning 88-86 on Nov. 5. However, all-star point guard John Wall didn’t play in that first meeting, but he returned on Nov. 25 to lead the Wizards to a 94-91 defeat of the Magic at the Amway Center. That night, Wall battered Orlando for 26 points, 10 assists, seven rebounds and three steals and he scored Washington’s final eight points of the game to serve as the difference.
``It would be great, first of all, to finish off the trip with four wins. That would be great!’’ Magic guard Evan Fournier said. ``Washington, that’s a team that we always struggle against, so to get a win here, being the most physical team here tonight, that’s how we’re going to win the game. They have guys who have given us problems in the past, so we have to fix that.’’
The Magic are hoping that their stellar defense of late will help them bottle up Wall and surrounding shooters Bradley Beal and Otto Porter. On the current 3-1 road trip, the Magic are holding teams to 89.5 points per game and just 40.2 percent shooting.
That improvement of late has helped Orlando climb to third in the NBA in overall defensive rating. They are giving up just 100.8 points per 100 possessions – a stellar mark that needs to hold true if they are going to win at Washington’s Verizon Center for the first time since Feb. 29, 2012. That drought covers nine consecutive losses in Washington, D.C.
Magic coach Frank Vogel knows that the limits of his team’s defense will be taxed by the all-around greatness of Wall.
``We’ve just got to keep him in front of us and do the best job that we can,’’ Vogel said. ``If you bring too much help, he’s finding 3-point shooters or bigs at the rim. And if you don’t bring enough help, he’s scoring it himself. So we’ve just got to have multiple efforts tonight defensively.’’
While the Magic’s defense has been mostly solid all season, it’s their offense that has come on of late and helped fuel their success. On this trip, Orlando is averaging 98 points a game and has shot 47.6 percent – big improvement over its season averages of 93.2 ppg. and 42.1 percent field goal accuracy.
Another big area is the ball movement. In the past four games, the Magic have 87 assists. An impressive 57.6 percent of their field goals on this trip have come off assists – a big jump up from the overall average of 46.8 percent on the season.
Winning this one tonight in Washington would mean so much to the Magic for a variety of reasons.
``For us, we’re 3-1 right now and the game that we lost we should have won,’’ said forward Jeff Green, a native of suburban Washington, D.C., who will have 30 family and friends in the crowd tonight. ``We can take away some great positives from this trip – especially if we end it tonight on a great note. If we can end this trip the right away, we can think back (days and weeks from now) about all of the positives that we accomplished and how we can further improve.’’
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