Miami Heat at Orlando Magic
Time: 6 PM CT
Spread: ORL -4
Total: 190.5
Betting odds c/o Pincle
If the 2016 NBA playoffs started today, the Miami Heat would host the Orlando Magic in a seven game series. The two teams met in the postseason back in the “post-Shaq but still Penny era,” but have not squared off in the playoffs since then (1997).
While it is still absurdly early to project that the teams will do so this year, this could offer a very early preview of what it might be like. The Magic will host Dwyane Wade and the Heat as 4-point favorites over its instate rival on NBA League Pass at 6 PM CT.
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The Magic are a far better team than last year under first-year coach Scott Skiles. While the roster is still very much the same (no changes to the core players), the results have been strikingly different. Skiles has long been billed as one of the league’s top defensive coaches, and his Magic team is playing like it.
Orlando ranks No. 8 in the NBA in defensive rating and is allowing the sixth-fewest points per game this season to opponents (98.6). Last year the Magic were No. 24 in defensive rating while winning just 25 games.
Skiles has this team believing in the value of defense, but its opponent the Miami Heat have been better still defensively. The Heat rank No. 7 in defensive rating and allow the second-fewest points of any team (just 94.6). Miami plays at one of the slowest paces in the NBA (No. 29 in pace), but the brand of basketball the Heat play might be very conducive to postseason success.
It begins with Miami’s shot swatting man in the middle, Hassan Whiteside, who ranks No. 1 in the NBA in blocked shots (4.0 per game). His paint-clogging presence is accented by Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, both of whom are still top-notch defensive talents. While the Heat are not quite the same force it was while LeBron James spent his time in South Beach, Miami cannot be discounted this season and sitting No. 3 in the East it is a position that Miami can maintain, if not improve upon, before season’s end.
But it will not come easy in Orlando, where the Magic are 10-5 this season. The Magic knocked off what was thought (prior to the season) to be a contending team in the Houston Rockets on Wed. night, winning 104-101 behind 21 points from center Nikola Vucevic. Vucevic has scored 20 or more in the past four Magic games, and he has had little trouble getting whatever looks he has wanted.
Even against one of the league’s top defenders at the 5-spot in Dwight Howard, Vucevic was able to spin free in the paint and step out, while displaying one of the league’s best inside-outside games from a center. The Magic placed all five scorers in double-figures in the game, and it shot 52.4 percent as a team while knocking down 7 of 16 from three-point range.
Orlando’s best chance at taking down the Heat is to go right at the shot blocker Whiteside. Vucevic is shooting 57.8 percent from the floor over Orlando’s last five games while posting 21.2 points and nine rebounds over that span. The Magic had balanced its attack so well through the first two months of the season, that Vucevic had taken a backseat to the “team” concept offensively.
Vucevic and Skiles’ offensive strategies are now displaying how much better the Magic can be when he is featured first and foremost in the offense.
Orlando suffered a narrow three-point defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks on Dec. 20, but if not for that heartbreaker (the last nine seconds were dreadful for Orlando who failed to get a shot off while down by three), the Magic would be 5-0 over that span.
Vucevic and his teammates have to be realizing at this point that the team has one low post threat, and it is him. While the Magic played well prior to fixing this flaw in the offense, since going to Vucevic the team has found its three point buckets that much easier to obtain within the structure and framework of its offense. Vucevic now has a comfortable lead in team scoring with 16.7 points per game, but this is a Magic team with plenty of weapons.
Tobias Harris, Evan Fournier and Victor Oladipo are all capable scorers who must be stopped and can have big nights. Will the Heat be able to contain that trio along with Vucevic? It stands as good a chance as any NBA team given its strong defense thus far, but the Magic are 11-5 since shifting Victor Oladipo to a sixth man role.
It is now to the point that many are starting to feel Oladipo is not only better in this role, but that he can contend for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award at this season’s conclusion.
Oladipo was drafted No. 2 overall in 2013, and it is now looking as though he could be the premier talent in that rather weak draft class. His energy off the bench and defensive talents make Orlando a much tougher team when he comes in the game, and though he has struggled mightily with his shooting this season, he is instrumental in forcing turnovers and helping the Magic get out on the break.
The former Indiana Hoosier has connected on just 38 percent from the field, however he is averaging 2.00 steals/blocks per game, and the Magic come up with 13.97 steals/blocks per game as a team while holding opponents to just 43.5 percent shooting. If the Magic are to prevail as NBA oddsmakers project, it will be by virtue of sticking to its game and pushing the pace against a Miami team that is far better in a half-court crawl.
