NBA 2018-19: Why the Orlando Magic will not make the 2019 NBA playoffs

#2 Team Stats:

Orlando Magic v Brooklyn Nets

The Magic are a team that struggles to produce points and at 106.1ppg they rank 26th in the NBA. Their offensive efficiency is also bottom third in the association at 22nd overall.

Further, many NBA games are decided late in the 4th quarter. However, the Magic’s 4th quarter scoring ranks worse than their overall points per game average. In the 4th quarter the Magic rank 28th at 25.2ppg according to teamrankings.com. The Magic are 23rd in 1st quarter scoring averaging 27.1 points to start games. This suggests that the Magic start games slowly and fade as the game is on the line towards the end. This is a bad combination when trying to find the will to overcome the one game deficit the Magic need to erase to catch and surpass the Miami Heat.

Defensively, the Magic average 5.5 blocks per game for 7th in the NBA. However, the Magic are not aggressive enough on the perimeter. They only force their opponents into 13 turnovers per game which leaves the Magic 27th in the NBA for that category. This is further verified by the fact that they only average 6.5 steals per game and are 28th best in the NBA.