| 13 May 2010
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Orlando Magic 98, Atlanta Hawks 84
Doesn’t make much sense to recap the fourth game of this non-competitive series. The Magic are a nightmare matchup for many teams but especially against the Hawks.
Throughout this series, it looked like the big brother was trying to break the little brother into submission. The Magic would bring the offensive onslaught early and then play pretty smart defense to trick Atlanta into thinking they were doing something worthwhile on offense. Fortunately for Stan Van Gundy and his team, the Hawks are under Mike Woodson’s system, which is comprised of some notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin, outtakes from the Better Basketball Videos and the stuff that was left out on the cutting room floor for Just Wright.
Instead of explaining something that was so obvious during the first quarter of Game One when the Magic set the tone with a 43-point blowout, I’d much rather use this space to try to figure out just how good this Orlando team’s title chances are.
It’s safe to say that there hasn’t been a team playing better than the Orlando Magic in the playoffs thus far. Eight games up, eight games down. In the first series against Charlotte, they never gave up more than 90 points in a game. Sure three of the games finished with single digit margins but overall, the Magic were in complete control of that series. Now they’ve just wrapped up a series in which they never won by fewer than 14 points and had a series margin of victory finishing at an impressive 25.3.
The Magic are seemingly perfect for playoff basketball. Despite all of the threes and the high volume of scoring, they don’t play at a fast pace. They’re masters of the half-court explosion with the way they quickly move the ball around the perimeter and run the pick-and-roll to near perfection. There is always an adjustment or another option when you take something away. You have to stop Jameer Nelson immediately or he’ll get a layup. Take away the layup and can get the lob pass to Howard inside for a highlight. Take away both of those with help defense and he has shooters on the perimeter either knocking down the shot or playing hot potato with swing passes until someone else has the shot.
On defense, they utilize their strengths and don’t pretend to be anything they’re not. They don’t really have lockdown defenders on the perimeter. Matt Barnes can defend and Mickael Pietrus is a solid defender too when he is focused on the task at hand. But guys like Jameer Nelson, Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter don’t exactly scream All-Defensive Team to you. The reason of course is Dwight Howard.
Having that presence in the middle deters a lot of shots around the rim. Nobody wants to have their shot slapped like it stole something. And with the way he moves around and covers the floor, you can’t exactly try to swing the ball around the floor and create a driving lane. The Magic also defend the three very well. They close out on shooters hard and force teams to take the lowest percentage shot in basketball – the long two-point jumper.
So while the Magic are destroying you with pick-and-rolls and three-point bombs, they’re forcing you to try to answer with horrible shots. This is the genius of Stan Van Gundy and his system. Play to your strengths, don’t do stuff you don’t have the personnel to do and bombard the opponents with dunks inside and threes in rhythm.
In matching up with them, the position you want to force them to score with is the small forward. Despite what you think about Vince Carter, you can’t hope that he’s the option your defense gives up. He can still score with the best of them and has been attacking the basket more when the Magic need to put games away. You’d like Orlando to pound the ball inside to Dwight so you can either have him take questionable shots out of the post or foul him and make him earn it at the line but Orlando doesn’t force the ball to him. You also can’t live with Jameer scoring because he’ll torch from just about everywhere on the court. And by the way, they have Rashard Lewis on the outside just waiting to knock down threes from the top of the key or in the corners.
So what do you do? You have to get Dwight into foul trouble with strong, physical and offensively skilled big men. You have to rotate crisply on the perimeter and force the Magic into the same bad shots they try to force you into. And you have to make them pay whenever you get wide-open shots or get to the free throw line.
Whoever they face in the Eastern Conference Finals will have their hands full. Boston and Cleveland will have problems slowing down the attack. Orlando destroyed Cleveland with pick-and-rolls and the adjustments made off of them last post-season. With Boston, Orlando does a good job of limiting points in the paint and forcing them into those bad mid-range jumpers.
Regardless of who the next opponent(s) the Magic face, the thing that is most certain is this team is built for post-season excellence. They don’t have to adjust at all from the way they play in the regular season to the slow, grind-it-out pace of the post-season. They always get to play their game and they are better at their game than anybody they face. If they control the tempo and get good ball movement throughout the next two rounds, it’s going to be hard to stop them from hoisting the championship trophy at the end of the playoffs.
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