Monday Musings: Magic face big test

The bulk of Orlando's offense goes through Dwight Howard. (Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

It’s still early enough in the NBA season that one game can change a team’s outlook. Give a relatively rested Suns team two straight home games against weary opponents, and Phoenix suddenly jumps from a lottery-bound clank-fest to a .500 team with the scoring margin of a winning club.

Nonetheless, it’s tempting to slip and say we’ve figured out the Magic, off to a solid 6-3 start and desperate to show Dwight Howard he has the supporting cast of a champion right where he is. Orlando has looked outclassed against the only sure playoff teams it has faced — the Thunder and Bulls — and dispatched a handful of lottery teams (or borderline playoff teams) with the ease we’d expect from a club so sound on both ends of the floor. The Magic look to be what everyone expected: a decent team but not a great one. And that’s clearly not enough to convince Howard, who told reporters Sunday  in Sacramento his trade request remains on the table despite the team’s nice start.

The one bright spot: The Magic rank sixth in points per possession after sporting a league-average offense last season that could not muster enough points against top teams. Orlando will be an elite defensive team as long as Howard and Stan Van Gundy are here. And if the Magic can really score at this rate, perhaps they could push for the third spot in the Eastern Conference and challenge the Chicago/Miami duo in the playoffs.

But is that offense real? We’re going to find out soon, because Orlando’s schedule is about to get tougher, starting with a road game Wednesday against the Trail Blazers, a top-five defensive team so far this season. Orlando has 12 games in the final 20 days of January, including two against both Boston and Indiana; one each against the Lakers, Spurs, Knicks and Sixers; six back-to-backs; and its only back-to-back-to-back of the season. The trade deadline isn’t for another two months, but three weeks from now, we will have a much better idea of the Magic’s place in the league’s hierarchy.

Those three weeks will test Orlando’s offense, which has shifted even more to the extreme edges of Van Gundy’s system — a system he has chosen in part to make up for Orlando’s well-known lack of a stud perimeter player. The Magic are a test case of an interesting question: Is there actually such a thing as too few isolation plays in the NBA? Everyone (and especially their fathers) hates isolation plays, symbols of the NBA’s alleged one-on-one selfishness and obsession with scoring. But they are a necessity when you have 24 seconds to score against great defenses bent on destroying your preferred options.

The Magic almost never run isolations. Only 5.1 percent of their possessions so far this season have ended via isolation plays, by far the lowest number in the league, per Synergy Sports. Only the aging Celtics (6.6 percent) are in the same ballpark, and even that number is an outlier that will come up as Paul Pierce plays more games. No other team is under 8 percent, and only the Magic (7.1 percent) were last season.

And that’s not all: The Magic barely run. Only 8 percent of Orlando’s possessions have come via transition, the lowest figure in the league this season and a percentage share that also would have ranked dead last in 2010-11.

This is Van Gundy playing to his cautious coaching preferences and his team’s strengths. The Magic have Howard, several capable pick-and-roll ball-handlers and an army of spot-up shooters — and precisely zero perimeter guys capable of creating a good shot for themselves without help. And so the huge bulk of their offense comes via post-ups for Howard, pick-and-rolls involving Howard as the screener and the spot-up threes that come when defenses load up to stop those plays.

Van Gundy has done his best this season to add pinches of creativity to this system. No team runs more staggered screens above the three-point line, with Jameer Nelson or Hedo Turkoglu dribbling around two picks — one from Howard, the other from Glen Davis or Ryan Anderson. The Magic have given more creative duties to the capable J.J. Redick, often having Redick take a hand-off in the left corner, dribble at full speed around picks at each elbow and exploit holes from there. They’ve had Redick run pick-and-rolls with Anderson, forcing switches that allow Anderson to post up smaller guys. Like every other NBA team, they start lots of possessions with a big guy at each elbow, but they’ve added the wrinkle of having a third player join the crowd at the foul line, creating an extra bit of chaos.

There are new pieces of flair: The Magic are getting more of their offense off of screens and cuts this season, per Synergy. Turkoglu has had a bit of a bounce-back season on offense, Anderson is a stud and Redick has upped his assists while reducing his turnovers — key for a coach that prizes each possession. Indeed, most of the Van Gundy fundamentals are present: Orlando has jacked more threes per game than all but four teams and fewer long two-pointers than everyone but the Mavs; they are taking care of the ball on offense and avoiding fouls on defense; and they are defending as well as we’d expect.

But we’ll see how that half-court offense, so dependent on constant motion rather than individual perimeter talent, holds up against the best teams. The Magic will especially need more from their starting guards, Nelson and Jason Richardson, both producing well below their career norms, and they’ll need to protect the defensive glass better. The Magic rank just 13th in defensive rebounding rate after topping the league in each of the last two seasons, and few of the supporting players are grabbing as many boards as their career numbers suggest they should. That’s a stat to watch, and this is a team to watch.

10 Things I Like and Don’t Like

Gerald Wallace's do-everything game has fit in beautifully with the Trail Blazers. (Cameron Browne/NBAE via Getty Images)

1. Gerald Wallace

Wallace isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary for him, but nothing has been more fun this season than watching how Wallace’s do-everything game has fit with Portland’s personnel, know-your-role philosophy, new fast pace and raucous home crowd. A joy to watch.

2. The under-nine-minutes timeout in the second and fourth quarters.

Every sports league is going to have little things that drive fans crazy. This sop to the networks might be the worst of the NBA’s little irritants. It stops the game’s momentum just as it has starts to build, lengthens the game overall and comes atop — and not instead of — separate TV timeouts at the six- and three-minute marks of each quarter. Maddening.

3. Blake Griffin’s defense

Defense at the NBA level is hard for young big men, who have to learn dozens of pick-and-roll coverages and all the quick-thinking rotations that come with them. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Griffin can be a bit of a liability on this end, aside from his elite rebounding. Teams are attacking him in the pick-and-roll, and they are especially going after the Griffin/Mo Williams combination. Griffin isn’t comfortable jumping out to cut off ball-handlers, choosing instead to slide sideways in front of them, protecting the paint but allowing point guards to turn the corner and get into the mid-range area.

Griffin tends to linger there as his man — the screener — rolls to the hoop or pops open for a jumper, forcing the other Clipper defenders to rotate sooner and more dramatically than they might like. If Griffin lingers too long, the Clippers switch by default, creating mismatches everywhere.

Again, Griffin is young, he’s already among the league’s best all-around offensive players and he’s among the best at sealing a stop by securing a defensive rebound. He’ll get better, even if he’ll never have the Kevin Garnett-like length that turns a good big man defender into a game-changing one. Until that improvement comes, look for teams to go after him on the pick-and-roll and via off-ball screens.

4. Kevin Durant, the ball-handler

Last season, about 7.5 percent of the possessions Durant finished via a shot, turnover or drawn foul came with him as the ball-handler in a pick-and-roll play, according to Synergy Sports. That number is up to 17.3 percent this season, a massive jump that may well be the biggest such increase in the league.

The results have been mixed; Durant is shooting just 41 percent out of the pick-and-roll and has turned the ball over on about 16 percent of those plays, below-average numbers for him that are about in line with what he did last season on the pick-and-roll. But the missteps are worth it. The better Durant is at handling the ball, the less the Thunder will have to worry in crunch time about Tony Allen-style defenders denying Durant as he runs off screens or tries to post up. The Thunder are running the pick-and-roll for Durant both above the three-point line and at the elbow, and the scoring champ has assisted on 20 percent of the Thunder’s baskets while 0n the floor — up from 13 percent last season.

He’s already dished six or more dimes three times this season, matching his total of such games from last season. Durant is an absolute nightmare for defenses, and it’s only getting worse for the rest of the league.

5. Jordan Crawford’s shot selection

This concern could apply to any number of players on the league’s only winless team and its most miserable watch. But Crawford’s shot selection is the most egregious. He is attempting 17 shots per 36 minutes, one of the highest marks in the league, and he’s shooting 32 percent. I’m not sure what’s worse — all the wild, off-the-dribble mid-range shots Crawford launches, or the fact that he’s attempting more than five threes per 36 minutes despite shooting just 16.7 percent this season from deep and 24 percent so far for his career.

Crawford obviously has talent, but Flip Saunders has to bench him unless Crawford dials it back.

6. Andrea Bargnani’s pump-and-drive

With Brad Miller on the fringe, Bargnani has a claim as the 7-footer with the league’s most enjoyable pump-fake-and-drive combination. Bargnani’s pump-and-go move can’t touch Miller’s for slowness, but it combines a big man’s deliberate speed with a surprising explosiveness once Bargnani gets moving. And the man can throw it down once he gets some momentum going.

7. Zach Randolph’s behind-the-backboard floater

Z-Bo is gone for a while, but he merits a mention here, since he pulled this trick before suffering a torn knee ligament. Randolph will get the ball on the right block, work a series of moves that ends with him along the right baseline, almost out of bounds with a defender in his face. And then you’ll see that left arm emerge horizontally almost from behind the backboard as Randolph wrist-flicks a floater no one sees coming. It’s one of Randolph’s most creative shots — and that’s saying a lot.

8. Houston’s youngsters, just not figuring it out

Houston is always game, but it just hasn’t had enough size, defense and interior scoring to compete, despite a solid offensive nucleus, the brilliant Kyle Lowry and a roster of fun young guys. One reason: Some of the Rockets’ maligned youngsters are living up to stereotypes. Jonny Flynn is a mess. Jordan Hill doesn’t play much, and when he does, he looks flat-footed on defense and uncertain on offense. Hasheem Thabeet has logged 11 minutes all season.

These guys are young, but they are each in their third season. At some point, you have to produce.

9. Kevin Love’s pick-and-roll options

If Minnesota hasn’t been quite as delightful to watch as everyone hoped, they’ve still been pretty darn fun, in part because of all the things Kevin Love can do in the pick-and-roll. One to watch for: Love will set his usual high screen above the three-point line and roll down the lane, his defender giving chase. As that happens, a second Minnesota big will pop into the picture and surprise Love’s guy with a pick near the foul line. This creates all sorts of chaos: Either Love runs open, or Minnesota’s opponent has to switch on the fly, a tough thing to do, and one that brings mismatches. Love will often slide into the post at the end of this action, knowing he has a huge advantage if he moves to score fast.

10. Ty Lawson, catching you off guard

The Point Forward’s official preseason choice for Breakout Star of the Year is living up to the hype, with a top-30 overall Player Efficiency Rating, career-high numbers in points, assists and steals, and an overall shooting mark that has remained steady (49 percent) despite Lawson’s jump in minutes.

But the real joy is watching Lawson and the Nuggets play at the fastest pace in the league and force heaps of turnovers. Are you a back-pedaling defender breathing a sigh of relief, thinking your team has sprinted back in time to stop Denver’s initial attack? Rest up for a split second, and Lawson will be at the rim. Are you an opposing big man who just grabbed a rebound in traffic? Watch out for the little guy poking at the ball as he runs up behind you. Lawson is just a terror.