ORLANDO – Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon’s job every game night is rather simplistic, but also extremely challenging: Use his rare combination of length and strength to guard the other team’s most dynamic offensive player.
With that in mind, Gordon will go from smothering Toronto Raptors’ superstar Kawhi Leonard on Friday night to checking Detroit big man Blake Griffin on Sunday afternoon at the Amway Center. It’s a heck of a burden, for sure, but one that the strapping, 6-foot-9 Gordon welcomes on a nightly basis.
``Man, I love that,’’ Gordon said of being asked to guard the other team’s ace scorer. ``I usually get the best in the league and the nights that I’m not I just have to work on my off-the-ball defense. But I love it.’’
Gordon took just six shots and scored only nine points on Friday, but he was one of the unquestioned stars of the Magic’s 116-87 romp over Toronto. Leonard, a leading MVP candidate this season, made just seven of 19 shots against Gordon’s defense and for a second time this season he was held below his lofty 26.7-point scoring average when facing the Magic.
Gordon’s gritty defense was the blueprint for a Magic squad that limited Toronto to 29.5 percent shooting – the fifth-lowest accuracy for an Orlando foe in the 30-year history of the franchise. During one 16-minute stretch spanning the second and third quarters, the Magic limited the Raptors to 16 points, allowing them to turn a seven-point deficit into a jaw-dropping 31-point lead.
Afterward, Magic coach Steve Clifford raved about the toughness and fight of Gordon in setting the defensive tone with the job that he did against Leonard.
``I thought Aaron Gordon was lights out, absolutely lights out. Disciplined, smart and he battled,’’ Clifford said. ``He, really, was just phenomenal with the way he defended. He talks about (improving in all phases), and even for this league, he’s an active participant with what’s going on and he comes in with ideas. I think his whole mission for the year is for people to understand that he’s a very good two-way player. I think that’s the way that he’s playing.’’
The Magic (15-19) came into Friday playing poorly, having dropped four straight games. As they did earlier in the season when they responded to a four-game skid by winning in San Antonio, the Magic bounced back from the latest four-game losing streak with the impressive annihilation of the Raptors.
Orlando is well aware that if it doesn’t play the same way in Sunday’s 3:30 p.m. showdown against Griffin and the Pistons, the victory over Toronto will be rendered mostly meaningless. Detroit, 16-17 overall and 5-9 on the road, got shelled 125-88 by Indiana on Friday and is expected to be one of the teams battling the Magic for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
``(Beating Toronto) is a huge win, but at the end of the day it’s still just one win,’’ said Magic center Nikola Vucevic, who became just the ninth NBA player since the 1975-76 season to have at least 30 points, 20 rebounds and eight assists in a game on Friday. ``If we don’t take off from here, this won’t mean much for us.
``We enjoy this and (on Saturday) we get back to work and get ready for Detroit,’’ said Vucevic, whose Magic fell 103-96 to the Pistons on Nov. 7. ``That’s another huge game for us because (the Pistons) are a team that we’ve already lost to once at home. And if we get back to getting some wins, that’s a (Detroit) team that we might see at the end of the year trying to get a playoff spot. So, that’s a huge game for us. And if we want this (Toronto) game to mean anything, we have to start a streak.’’
Gordon had a heck of a streak earlier this season when he checked stars Ben Simmons, LeBron James (twice), Leonard and Paul Millsap over a five-game stretch and held each one of them below their season scoring average. In the sixth game, Gordon was well on his way to doing the same to two-time NBA Finals MVP Kevin Durant before a back injury knocked him out of action.
On Friday, Gordon didn’t shy away from the challenge of checking another former Finals MVP in Leonard. The Raptors’ standout forward was cooking in the early going, making four of his first six shots and scoring 10 first-quarter points. From there, however, Gordon got the best of the matchup, limiting Leonard to three-of-13 shooting. In Leonard’s two games against Gordon this season, he’s made just 42.8 percent of his shots – well below the 49.2 percent he’s shooting for the season.
``Just make things difficult for him, stay down on pump fakes. He’s a really good player and I’ve just got to make him uncomfortable,’’ Gordon said of his mindset when facing an offensive player as skilled as Leonard. ``He’s solid. He doesn’t talk a lot and kind of lulls you asleep. So, you just have to be locked in all game long.’’
Few defenders in the NBA have the versatility to guard a slippery wing such as Leonard one night and a powerful post player such as Detroit’s Griffin two nights later. But that will be Gordon’s challenge come Sunday afternoon.
Just as he’s fared well against Leonard in two meetings, Gordon has proven he can be an irritant for Griffin. The 6-foot-10, 250-pounder, who ranks 11thin the NBA in scoring at 25.2 points per game, struggled through a seven-of-17 shooting night against Gordon in early November. The Pistons actually were a minus-eight with Griffin on the floor for 35 minutes and they won largely because of the play of their bench.
Defensive efforts like that one by Gordon have Clifford – a 19-year NBA coaching veteran – believing that Orlando’s forward can ultimately become one of the league’s top defenders.
``He’s locking more into technique and close-out technique and stuff like that,’’ Clifford said of the fifth-year veteran. ``He’s grown a lot already, but he has a chance to become an elite defender.’’
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