ORLANDO – A coaching lifer who has built his career off a strong work ethic and dogged determination, Steve Clifford took advantage of the Orlando Magic’s day off from practice on Sunday to completely pour himself into studying his team’s offensive struggles over the first six games.
Clifford didn’t simply re-watch the two games that Orlando (2-4) dropped over the weekend; instead, he said that he went back and watched every offensive possession from the six games thus far, looking for reasons as to why the Magic have been so spotty on that end of the floor.
Clifford isn’t one to simply sit back and let things play out, as evidenced by his decision to promote 21-year-old point guard Markelle Fultz into the starting lineup on Saturday and for the foreseeable future. Clifford is being proactive by digging deep and trying to find the root causes of an Orlando offense ranking last in nearly every major statistical category.
``Our biggest problem right now, to be honest, is when we’re playing ball – and with the way the NBA is now, that’s the biggest part of your offense – we’re struggling,’’ Clifford said, referring to the offensive sequences when his team is playing in free-flowing situations without a specific play call. ``When we’re running sets – and I sat there (on Sunday) and watched every offensive possession for the whole year – the numbers prove it, because I’ve got the (stats) on everything ��� (off of) makes, misses, side-out-of-bounds (plays) and everything.
``When we’re running our offensive sets and it’s scripted, we’re fine,’’ Clifford continued. ``When we’re playing ball, which is the biggest part of NBA offense with the way (the game) is now, we’re struggling. It’s because of (passing), and when we start passing the ball freely, we’ll be (efficient and) more inside/out, too.’’
Armed with everything he learned from his Sunday studies, Clifford put his team through a two-hour film session/practice on Monday that he hopes will help Orlando break out offensively starting on Tuesday. The Magic face the new-look Thunder (2-4) in Oklahoma City on Tuesday and play the Mavericks in Dallas a night later.
Fultz, for one, feels the Magic are close to solving what has ailed them thus far. Orlando is last in the NBA in scoring (93.5 points per game), overall shooting (39.7 percent), 3-point accuracy (28.3 percent) and offensive rating (94.6 points per 100 possessions). Those numbers have mostly torpedoed a defense that has proven itself elite again with the Magic ranking second in points allowed (98.2 points per game), third in 3-point percentage allowed (29.2 percent), fifth in defensive rating (99 points per 100 possessions) and eighth in field goal percentage allowed (42.4 percent).
All of the offensive struggles, Fultz said, could dissolve quickly with a good showing on Tuesday in OKC.
``We’ve got to move (the ball), and when we don’t run our offense, sometimes we get caught up in holding (the ball),’’ Fultz analyzed. ``It’s stuff that we’ve all seen (in film sessions) and it’s something that we can change quickly. It’s on everybody’s mind and we did a great job (in Monday’s practice) of moving (the ball) and learning where we’re going to be when we don’t have play calls. (Monday) was a great practice, getting us ready for this road trip and this back-to-back. I think we’re going to be pretty good (going forward).’’
The Magic entered the season hopeful that their continuity from last season to this one would pay off in the form of a fast start and a shorter learning curve. Orlando returned 12 players who comprised approximately 86 percent of the minutes played last season, along with Clifford and the front office still being in place. And prior to veteran point guard D.J. Augustin being shifted to the second unit, Orlando was the only team in the NBA to open this season with the same starting five that it ended with last season.
However, the Magic have yet to feel the offensive benefits of that continuity. Orlando enters Tuesday’s game in OKC as the only team that has yet to score 100 points, something of a death knell today in the small-ball, up-tempo NBA where 28 of the 30 teams average scoring 100 points nightly. Also, of issue for the Magic is the fact that they have failed to generate the easy points that Clifford and the players talked of doing throughout the preseason, ranking 24th in the percentage of their points coming off the fast break (10.3 percent), 21st in points scored off opponents’ turnovers (16.7 per game) and 20th in second-chance scoring (12.5 points).
Then, there’s the issue of the Magic simply not knocking down the open shots that they are creating. On shots from at least 10 feet away from the rim and no defender within 6 feet of the shooter – a sign of stellar ball movement – the Magic rank second in the NBA in getting 3.7 of those attempts a game. Also, 17 of Orlando’s 3-points shots nightly are coming with no defender within 6 feet of the shooter – the 12th most such attempts in the NBA – but it is connecting on only 30.4 percent of those tries (28thin the league).
In the process of sifting through his team’s current offensive struggles, Clifford remembered that much the very same thing happened to the Magic at the start of last season. Orlando opened last season 2-6 largely because it averaged just 99.9 points per game while shooting only 41.4 percent from the floor and 30 percent from 3-point range. That team, of course, went on dominate over the final 2 ½ months of the regular season, post a 42-40 record and get the franchise into the playoffs for the first time since 2012.
As long as the Magic improve the execution in free-flow situations, trust the pass in half-court sets and defend at a high level, they should be able to get back to their winning ways, Clifford stressed.
``It’s really similar to last year (when the offense) struggled) – the ball’s got to get going toward the basket more and we have to move the ball freely,’’ Clifford said. ``One less dribble, no more probing and no more looking for a little bit better. We have to be willing to trust the pass. When we do that, that’s when we play better.
``Last (season), it took a while, but (ball movement) is going to be the key for our team,’’ he added. ``We have a very team, but we’re not going to be one of those teams where we come down, give this guy the ball and stand there. It’s just not going to work that way for us.’’
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