Everyone was so preoccupied with the emotional return of DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl (give him his dues) that we haven’t prepared to once again see Terry Ross today. It’s an emotional weekend all around as the Orlando Magic come strolling into town for the second game back after All Star.
While the Magic have had some up moments on the season (a 5 game winning streak prior to All Star) they have also had plenty of down moments (completely expected) leading to their record of 27-33. They even lost to Chicago on Friday night, which is a reasonable argument for relegation in the NBA.
With that said, Orlando is often the cause of Toronto’s worst loss of the year to date, a 116-87 demolition in their last match on December 28th. It was Nikola Vucevic who did the majority of the damage with 30 points on 12-of-17 shooting, with 19 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.
If you are looking for positives to take from this game the only one is that Kyle Lowry was absent (also Jonas Valanciunas, for the record). The stink of the Orlando destruction remains off the heart of the team, and the same can be said for Marc Gasol and Jeremy Lin since they’re new, but this is pulling at straws to find a silver lining.
First things first, the Magic are a terrible offensive team (ranked 23rd in the NBA) and we should all be embarrassed that the Raptors let them score 116 points in a single game. On the other side of the ball the Magic are surprisingly much more capable with a defensive rating of 107.8 (ranked 9th). As a point of reference, the Raptors are just one spot ahead of Orlando with a defensive rating of 107.3.
The Magic play at one of the league’s slowest paces, are elite at defensive rebounding, and rarely go for second chance points. They are just…average. Look at their shot chart:
Look at all that beige, the blandest and most uninteresting way to show how average they are. They are average from the corners, above the break, from mid-range, and in the paint. The Magic are the beige of offense.
How could the Raptors lose so badly in December to something so beige?? And what can they do differently to change the outcome?
Make some Shots
I’m going all Leo on this one. The Raptors shot an embarrassing 29.5 percent against the Magic in their last game and should feel ashamed about it. Even if they were average the outcome could have been a lot different last time.
Rebounding
Orlando killed the Raptors on the glass, losing the overall battle 69 to 55. I got nothing to add…
Points in the Paint
The Raptors are normally average when it comes to scoring in the paint, but against Orlando this disappeared with them scoring just 26 paint points. Orlando on the other hand put up 56 points in the paint despite averaging the second lowest points in the paint at 42.7 per 100 possessions.
I may be sounding like a broken record here, but tonight is the perfect opportunity to try switching up the starting line-up with Gasol in place of Ibaka. Whether he starts (which he should) or not though, Gasol can be a key in each of these areas.
Gasol can provide a presence in the paint on both sides of the ball, physically match-up with Vucevic, and help negate the rebounding advantage that the Magic had last time.
Prediction: Raptors win, 118-106
