How The Orlando Magic WON One (1) Game Against Giannis and The Death Star Bucks in The Bubble
threes, threes, and three more threes.
On a Tuesday at one in the afternoon in The Bubble, with no fans there to cheer in the stands, Orlando brought the noise. The Magic took advantage of Milwaukee’s one potential weakness: giving up open shots to below-average shooters; Nikola Vucevic popped off for a career night, Gary Clark poured in four threes. Orlando even built a wall to keep Giannis Antetokoumnpo out of the paint; it worked. Although Giannis shot efficiently overall (12/25 FG, 3/7 3P), Antetokoumnpo saw a barrier to the rim in practically every half-court possession; Giannis was forced to pull-up for more jumpers than he would have liked. Clifford learned from the master:
First things first, respect to Vucevic. After no-showing in last year’s playoffs, Vooch couldn’t have had a more redeeming performance this go-around; to go from Marc Gasol eating your lunch in one playoff series to making barbecue chicken out of two DPOY candidates in the next is an unbelievable turnaround. Only shooting 33% from downtown on the season, Vooch was locked in for the most impressive performance of his career, finding the hot hand drilling 5/8 from deep to go with an efficient 15/24 from the field, giving him 35 PTS (a playoff career-high), 14 REB, 4 AST (5 TO), and 1 STL on the game. Vucevic joins Steph Curry as the only players in NBA History to have 35 PTS, 10 REB, and 5 3PM in a playoff opener. Knowing Milwaukee tends to duck under screens and close off the rim more than contest below-average outside shots, Orlando rightfully called P&R after P&R with Vucevic as the roll-man to penetrate the paint and open up looks for shooters, knowing its their best half-court play-type by PPP other than an open Fournier spot-up, which can also occur off-ball of a Vucevic P&R.
With Aaron Gordon out to injury, The Magic returned to familiar territory: posting up Vucevic. While that move hasn’t been as effective this season (0.81 PPP), it got the job done last night, especially anytime Vuc found a mismatch on the block. Vucevic can use his length protecting the rim, but generally his drop coverage in P&R and his focus on securing the rebounding over closing out leads to wide open jumpers for the competition; the offensive hub Vucevic provided yesterday is what needs to happen to outweigh any lack of defensive effort. If Vuc can ever capture that production and develop into a consistent night-to-night threat, he’ll return to his All-Star form; once in a blue moon, when Vucevic is making his threes, pulling down boards, finishing off P&R, while scoring and creating out of the post, his impact resembles Minnesota Kevin Love or Brooklyn Brook Lopez as an old-school, low-post scoring creator.
Most Efficient Orlando Magic Play-Types by PPP this season:
1.17 Fournier Spot-Up
1.13 Vucevic P&R Roll-Man
1.10 T-Ross/Fournier Off-Screen
1.03 T-Ross Spot-Up
1.02 Fournier Handoff
0.95 Fournier P&R Ball-Handler
0.94 Gordon Post-Up/T-Ross P&R Ball-Handler
The Magic’s other best plays by PPP this season are essentially either running their best shooters (Fournier/Ross) off screens and handoffs to find an open look from beyond the arc, or those same shooters being in off-ball spot-up situations ready to catch-and-shoot off of paint-penetration. Until Fournier, to his credit, hit three triples to put the game out of reach in the clutch, Orlando’s two best shooters weren’t the ones doing the damage from deep last night; Ross was however able to connect on a couple of middies and acrobatic leaps towards the rim, shooting 7/13 from the field for 18 PTS. It was Orlando’s below-average shooters, the type of shooters Milwaukee notoriously leaves open, who showed up the loudest.
3PM/3PA today:
Vucevic (5/8)
G.Clark (4/12)
Fournier (3/7)
J.Ennis (2/3)
3P% on the year:
Vucevic (33.7%)
G.Clark (35%)
Fournier (38.1%)
J.Ennis (28.6%)
Markelle Fultz didn’t shy away from the spotlight, either. Coming out swinging in the first quarter, ‘Kelle quickly started 4/4 from the field thanks to Clifford calling an onslaught of Fultz-Vucevic P&Rs, which puts the entire rotation in their ideal scoring position by PPP. The Magic are never more dynamic then when Fultz is skating through the paint with the ball in his hands with Vooch waiting as a rim-rolling/C&S finisher off of P&R while Fournier, Ross, and whoever serves as Orlando’s fifth starter space the floor. Markelle snaked and slithered his way to fifteen points shooting 6/11 from the field, a 6/3 A/TO ratio, two boards, a block, and a pull-up three; his backup, D.J. Augustin, found his groove with an 11 PTS — 11 AST double-double.
The Orlando Magic won the War of Athreetion; the Magic shot 39% on 41 attempts from deep to the Bucks’ 33% on 42 attempts. Milwaukee dared Orlando’s below average shooters to beat them; The Magic double-dog-dared them right back with a taste of their own medicine. Giannis shot 7 threes; Middleton shot 6; Bledsoe shot 5; B.Lopez, George Hill, Marvin Williams, Wesley Matthews and Pat Connaughton shot 4; DiVincenzo and Korver attempted 2; only fourteen dropped through the net. On the other side, Vucevic drilled five triples, Gary Clark tossed in four, Fournier crawled to three, Fultz and D.J. made one each, and Ennis topped it off with two of his own. As an unknown prophet once said, “If you really think about it, logically speaking, if one is able to win one game like this… well, one could win two, three, heck, maybe even four games.”
in Game 1, The Magic blew up The Death Star Bucks; consider the proton torpedoes: FIRED!
FULL GAME 1 HIGHLIGHTS:
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