Can Orlando OVERCOME Playoff Disappointment and Contend Next Season?

Can Orlando OVERCOME Playoff Disappointment and Contend Next Season?

We’ve moved on to the NBA’s final four. So, what lingering lessons are there for the Orlando Magic? And what can they learn from the conference finalists today on Locked On Magic? You are Locked On Magic, your daily Orlando Magic podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. And you are indeed locked on Magic. Today is May 19th, 2025. My name is Philip Rosnik. the senior writer over at Orlando Magicaily.com, credentialed member of the Orlando Magic Media since the 2010 2011 season. You can follow me on Twitter of course, phipr_omd, and on blue sky at phiprr. On today’s episode of Lockdown Magic, we’re going to talk final lessons from the Orlando Magic’s playoff run. What we can take away as we get to think about the offseason and what we can learn from what we’re seeing in the playoffs so far as we’ve now reached the final four. We’re going to get to that continuing kind of putting a bow on any playoff talk. We’re going to it’s been around. So, we’ll we’ll get to that. Some lessons that we learned as the Celtics bowed out and more. We’ll get to all that coming up here in just a moment. But first, we want to thank you again for making lockdown magic part of your day every day. No matter when you listen to us, whether it’s first in the morning, whether it’s right we upload. We truly appreciate you making lockdown magic part of your day every day. We truly appreciate you though those of you who make us your first listen of the day of the day. We also appreciate all of you who listen to us every day. Our everyday are so awesome. We’re still going five days a week strong until the end of free agency until the end of summer league in July. So going to see plenty of me. We’ll do some draft stuff. We’ll do some free agency stuff. We got a lot planned as we get to the end of the NBA season and into the offseason. All that is all part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode of Lockown Magic is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code locked on NBA at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. This is the central debate, the central debate of the Orlando Magic season. And we talked a little bit about that about this in our episodes with Keith Smith from last week. This this this episode’s going to have some of rehashing of that stuff. I’m not going to lie. Um, how close are the magic to contention? If there’s a theme to today’s episode, it it’s it’s beginning to kind of pierce at this question. And look, I am sure that Jeff Jeff Anthony Pete, all the guys in the Magic front office, this is the central question that they’re they’re they’re wrestling with. Very clearly the Magic must make additions. Very clearly the Magic can’t just rest on their laurels. Very clearly the Magic can’t look at this roster and say, “Oh, it was just injuries.” They need to improve. So, that’s the first answer to this question. No, the Magic aren’t good enough to compete at a championship level. No, the Magic aren’t at the level of even the Boston Celtics, of even the New York Knicks. Perhaps not even of the Indiana Pacers. Maybe we’ve judged the Pacers too harshly. Maybe the Magic just a really good matchup for them. You can see there’s a a pathway in that sense. And I’m not hating on the Pacers. Pacers are really good. They’ve earned it. They’re they’re built for the playoffs. And I think that’s another thing that we’ll talk about later this week. I I have that on my on my back burner to talk about why the Magic are built more for the playoffs than we realize. Indiana is very much the same way. That team is built for playoff success. They haven’t had to face the Magic in the playoffs. And I would be fascinated by a Magic Pacers series. I would be fascinated by that series because the Magic seem to be the only team that could kind of slow down the Pacers a little bit. Have consistently slowed down the Pacers over the last two years. So, I’m not throwing shade at the Pacers. They’ve earned it. They’re the model. They’re they’re the the pathway the Magic have to say, “Oh, we aren’t that far because I don’t think the Magic consider themselves that much worse than the Pacers.” But clearly the Magic aren’t there yet. The Pacers have done it. Second straight conference finals. a an accomplishment we should not ignore or should not um should not dismiss so had out of hand. The Pacers have done it. The Magic haven’t. The Magic have a lot to prove and the Magic clearly have a long way to go. But how long is that way? That’s the ultimate question. And so we look at the playoffs. We look at the Magic series with the Celtics. And look, that was the series we always imagined the Magic were going to get this year. What we wanted from this the the season this year was for yes, the Magic to improve, to maybe get homec court advantage, to to win a playoff series. But ultimately, I think all of us envisioned the Magic getting to a playoff series and losing to a real contender, probably Boston. Maybe some of us thought Milwaukee, whoever it was. We all envision, let’s get to let’s let’s win a playoff series, get to the Celtics, and see where we stand. See how far away we are. Well, obviously injuries played a huge role in that. Maybe if the Magic were healthy, they would have drawn Indiana. They would have drawn Milwaukee. We would have had a much more competitive first round series. Drawn Detroit, who I, you know, all due respect to our friends from Detroit. Magic might be favored in that series if they’re fully healthy. Who knows? Who knows? But that’s not what happened. Instead, the Magic star down a playoff series where they were found wanting, where they were found not having enough. not being able to to make up that gap. At the end of the day, as as exciting as excited as we were by how the Magic played, look, the the Magic lost because of their weaknesses. They can’t shoot, they can’t score. Paulo and Fron have to do everything. Why they lost that series isn’t a surprise. And again, so much of this offseason already is focused on, okay, we know what those issues are. How are we going to fix The Magic still lost that series in five and games three and four were close. Game two was within range, but the Magic never really got over the hump. Game one, the Magic suffered a bad third quarter and obviously game five, the Magic gave up a huge third quarter, couldn’t grab the rope back again, and Boston finally found their three-point shooting. For as encouraging as the Magic’s defense was, they gave up 117 points per 100 possessions. Boston still Boston may have been taking the shots Orlando wanted them to take, but they were still eviscerating the Magic. And at the end of the day, Orlando’s offense couldn’t sustain anything to take advantage of what the defense was giving them. The Magic shot 20 something% from three. They shot sub 30 from three in the playoffs. You got to score a little bit to win in the playoffs. You got to have a, you know, to be an elite team, you’ve got to be a top 10 offense and a top 10 defense. Magic got the defense part down. But so does teams like Boston. So does teams like Cleveland. You know, so does New York to be honest. New York is a top 10 offense. They’re 12, 13th in defense. Indiana is a top offense. They’re middle of the pack on defense. An elite something with a terrible other thing is not going to do it. And so while the Magic accorded themselves well uh and the Magic played well by all accounts and gained a lot of respect around the league, especially for their star players, it’s not enough. It’s still a wide gulf between the Magic according to themselves well and winning a series against the Celtics. Whether it’s the first or the second round or the conference finals, ultimately these are the teams you want to be able to beat. And I I I mentioned this throughout the series, like Boston against Orlando at least had multiple ways to beat them. Orlando took away their three-point shot and Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown went nuts from the mid-range. And look, they made shots that they didn’t make in the in the Knicks series. The the difference between the the series in Orlando and the series against New York is a New York made shots. New York is a capable offense and B, Boston missed a lot of the shots that they made against Orlando on top of New York giving them more threes and baiting them into settling for threes and not attacking the basket nearly as much. On top of yes, injury concerns, Christophorzingis dealing with the illness in the second round that he didn’t deal with in the first round. Maybe that changes the series, although I don’t think it changes it very much. The Magic have to look at this postseason and and ultimately the big lesson they have to take is that yeah, we played well, but it wasn’t enough. We played well, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to win. The goal is to advance. The Magic did not care that they were playing the Celtics. Their goal at the start of the season was to win a playoff series. If you if you get to game seven and you have a 17-point lead in the first half, the next step, the only way you improve on your season is to get to the second round. The Magic did not accomplish that goal. And unfortunately for them, because their offense looked so rough, because their because the the their defense wasn’t there, because the Celtics were just a more put together, more poised and more understanding team, more understanding of what it takes to win a championship. The Magic, while a tough out, while a team that gave Boston some problems, wasn’t ready for that stage. And if Jaylen Suggs is healthy, Yeah. They might, though, they’ll certainly win a few more games during the regular season. If Jaylen Suggs were healthy, yeah, they might win a few more games. That series might be a little different, but at the end of the day, the Magic lost because of fatal flaws within this roster that teams like Boston, teams like New York, teams like Cleveland, teams like Indiana do not have. If the Magic want to crack that final four, if they want to get into that final four grouping to play beyond the first two weeks, first round of the playoffs, they’re going to have to they’re going to have to solve the offense problem. That’s not rocket science, but it’s clearly the biggest thing holding them back. I think our friend uh Matt Moore from Lockdown Nuggets, also part of Hardware, also hard of Hardware Proxism, um he wrote, I forget the exact stat, you can find it on his on his Twitter account, H at HP Basketball. Um he wrote that the Celtics shot something like 60% on shots after missed baskets and the Magic missed a lot more baskets than the Knicks did. That’s the difference. Orlando’s offense put the defense in a tough in a tougher spot than it needed to be. You get you allow the Magic to set their defense up, they’re going to win a lot of games. That’s honestly that’s the goal. Just do it. Just get an offense that allows you to set your defense up because nobody’s scoring on your defense. Then again, maybe that’s not the final lesson either. We’re going to get to to that and other things we learned from the conference semi-finals, but I want to talk more about the positives. We’re going to go from from the negatives to the Gulf to what the Magic have to stand on because the Magic do have a lot to stand on. We’ll get to the foundation the Magic can build on coming up here in just a moment. But first, today’s episode of Lockdown Magic is brought to our friends over at Monarch Money. Ever check your bank account and wonder where did all my money go? It went the same place my voice went uh to Rockville on over the weekend. Between dining out, online shopping, and entertainment, it’s easy to lose track. That’s where Monarch Money comes in. Your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. 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That’s monarchmoney.com. code locked on NBA for half off your first year. So, this paints a bleak picture for the Magic. Like, you know, it’s very easy to look at this five game series and especially the way that the players and the team talked about that fivegame series and say, “Yeah, the Magic recorded themselves well, all things considered. You know, the Magic gave the Celtics a tougher fight than I think a lot of people gave them credit for.” You could say all that stuff, but at the end of the day, they lost in five. Wasn’t a particularly competitive series. The games weren’t close. Game four, game three and four were close. You know, the Magic pulled out game three. The Celtics won game four in a close game. That was the kind of series turning win. And this wasn’t like last year’s Cleveland series where I was like, “Oh, Orlando can win big in this series.” There was even when the Magic were up, you know, the game five was the only game, by the way, where the Magic were up in the first half and like really looked like they were gonna they were in they were in control of things. Otherwise, it always felt like Boston that like they were chasing Boston. And so that tells you that a Orlando is nowhere near Boston’s level. And again, Boston’s going to go through changes. We’re going to we’re going to get to a lot of those changes and a lot of what’s going on around the Eastern Conference and really the NBA throughout the course of the week. We’re going to do a we’re going to do a contract uh episode tomorrow. We’re going to talk we’re going to talk salary stuff and CBA stuff tomorrow. So, get your pens and papers ready. Get your calculators ready. I’m going to throw some numbers at you. So, I it can be overwhelming to think about that gulf because yes, I I think we can say coming out of this series, the Magic have work to do. This isn’t a complete project. This isn’t a one little tweak and everything’s fine. There is some heavy lifting to do on this roster. And while I don’t think the Magic are in any rush to break up the Palo Franon Suggs uh trio, a that’s a very expensive trio now. And B, I I I the Magic the Magic clearly need to add something around them, add a lot more around them. It isn’t just one thing. It is multiple things uh to make the Magic the team that they ultimately want to be. Having said that, it’s not like it’s that hard because the Magic do feel like they have a $30 million trio. They’re going to pay $33 million to Jaylen Suggs next year whether you like it or not. They’re going to pay what 35 36 million to France Vagner next year. Halo Vancer’s contract contract extension, his max extension is going to start at above $40 million. He’s going to be the highest paid player in Magic history. And that’s just because of the economics. It’s not a assessment of value. It’s not an assessment of his place in Magic history by any means. That’s just the economy of the NBA today. The Magic feel like they have a core to build on. And if there is one thing the playoffs unequivocally proved, that series against Boston unequivocally proved is the Magic have those stars in place. That is not nothing. To have two all-star level players, not not just all-star level players, be honest, two allNBA level players. Again, the Magic haven’t had that since T-Mac and Grant Hill in the 20 in 2000 from 2000 to 20ou from 2001 to 2003. Um, the Magic C or 2004, excuse me, because that that happened, but Grant Hill was hurt all the time. The Magic haven’t actually had that since Sha and Penny in 1997. The Magic right now have more talent at the top end of their roster than they have ever had. I mean again you can say oh well Jir Nelson was an all-star. Rashard Lewis was an all-star. You know Turkish should have an all-star. Sure. 2009 that 2009 team was really special. That’s probably the most talent the Magic have had on a single roster. Paulo and Fron at 22 and 23 years old. This is the core of a championship team. Ultimately whether the Magic win a championship or not depends on two things. one, how the Magic surround their stars, the role players they bring in, but ultimately it comes down to how good are Paulo and Fron going to be. Fron has got to figure out how to make a three-pointer. Once he figures that out, he is an allNBA player. Paulo Baneo figuring out ways to be more efficient. Once he figures that out, he is an allNBA player. No doubt all NBA player, potentially MVP level player. Well, I think people and especially in kind of today’s society, everyone is very quick to make these sweeping conclusory statements. The criticisms that people like to make of these two are spoton. The intensity that those criticisms are delivered act like they’re not going to get better. But ultimately, yes, the magicker could go as far as Paulo and Fron take them. And there’s no sense or no hint that either are on the trade block. Sorry you Giannis fans. Sorry you Darius Garland fans. You could actually do Darius Garland deal without involving Fron or Jaylen Suggs in there. So keep that in mind. Um it’s the Magic have a foundation and the playoffs again proved these are players who are going to step up on the biggest stages. Paulo Vancero averaged 29.4 points per game in the playoffs. The shooting splits are okay. 43 and a half percent, 44 from the from the floor, 44.4% from three, 65.9% from the foul line. You could argue Paulo left points on the board. He’s a 30-point per game guy in the playoffs. He took 24.8 field goal attempts per game, the most in the playoffs. That just tells you how much the Magic were relying on him. Regardless if you want to argue the efficiency or not, he held his end of the bargain. He did everything he could to help the Magic quit. So did France Vagner after an up and down series against Cleveland Cavaliers. He was stellar. 25.8 points per game, 44.3% shooting, 76.9% for the fell line. We will not talk about the 18.9% from three. But again, we knew his three-point struggles coming into the series. That is an issue that he will try to resolve and we’ll try to get to the bottom of at some point during this during this offseason before we see him play in Euro Basket. Most likely, he did not fully commit to Euro Basket. But the Magic walk away from this series with two things. One, knowing through two things for their foundation. One, knowing their stars will step up. Their stars came to play. Their stars carried the Magic as far as they could. Wendell Carter was the only other player to average double figures in the playoffs. And that is, yes, a testament to how good the Boston defense is. Boston’s defense was really is really good. And the fact that Pow and Fraud still put up those numbers is even more impressive because of that fact. But it’s also true. It’s also true that the Magic don’t have enough help for them. It’s also true that the Magic need to give them the support to maximize their talent. We’ve we’ve we’ve we were done with the phase of oh, Paulo and Frogs could do it on their own. that Paulo and Fron are so good that they can make Boston sweat a little bit. A team as talented and as good as Boston double take a little bit. The Magic have another piece of their foundation though that they they can build on. And I’m going to talk a little bit about that in our final segment before we also talk about final lessons from the second round because there is a lot to learn and a lot more competition than we think for who the Magic want to go after. We’ll get to that coming up here in just a moment. So, what is that other piece of the foundation? Yes, I mentioned the Magic’s defense gave up 117.8 points per 100 receptions or 117.3 in in the in the playoff series. Statistically, the defense was not good enough. Game five, the game that they lost by what, 29, 31, whatever it was, the only blowout in the series, essentially the only blowout in the series. Game one was got away from them a little bit. That was not even Boston’s best offensive game in the series. I told this to a lot of people like there were g there there was that we knew there were going to be a few games in the series. There’s going to be a game where Boston made a lot of threes and Orlando couldn’t do anything about it. Um, you could argue that was game one. You could argue that was game five. There’s going to be this game where the Magic made a bunch of threes and the Magic had to win that game. Whichever game it was where the Magic actually made their three-pointers, that’s the game the Magic had to win. When you look at game one, the Magic made like 42% of their threes and they lost by 17. That was majorly concerning. And you hope that that wasn’t the only one of those games. Game three, I think, was very similar. Game four was another game where the Magic made shots. The Magic’s best offensive game in the series, by the way, was game four, and they lost that game. Lost it down the stretch, but they lost that game. That was something that couldn’t happen in that series. There’s going to be a game where the Celtics didn’t make threes, and that was a game the Magic had to win. I remember talking to Josh Robbins, the Athletic about this. I was like, Magic have to hope that the game that they make threes and the game the Celtics don’t make threes aren’t the same game because they’re going to need two of them, if not three of them, to to get over the hump. The Magic’s defense largely did its job. Like I said, I think if you go back and look at the tape, Orlando’s defense gave up the shots it wanted to give up. I got a lot of, you know, like I I got a lot of people, you know, talking to me and I talked to a lot of people. Um, and and we were talking during the Knicks Celtics series, like I was like the Celtics were miss, you know, like the Celtics were missing all the were making all the shots that they’re missing against the Knicks. Um, the Magic did a good job taking away three-point line. They’re made they’re missing threes. So, you know, like they made like Boston shot like 37% from three. They made their threes in the Orlando series. Orlando just prevented them from taking threes. And that’s a huge part of the Magic defense. The Magic forced the Celtics to go into more isolations. They forced them into um mid-range shots. And again, Jason Tatum had an awesome series. Jaylen Brown had a solid series. They bet that Kristoff Porzingis was going to be off and on and he largely was. Um, big part of why the Celtics were better offensively in game four is Porzingis stopped settling for mid-range jumpers and postups and started attacking the basket when there were smaller defenders on him. And that forced the Magic to change your defense a little bit. That that loosened Boston up a little bit. Um the problem was again Orlando had to play a lot in transition because of the misses. Um you know and again the game was played at very low possession count. Um but Boston was able to beat the Magic in cross matches and beat them when they when when they when the Magic couldn’t get their defense set. And again, Orlando was just so scared of the three-point shooting because they know they can’t make up that difference that they gave up shots in the paint that they probably normally wouldn’t give up. And again, Orlando fouls a lot. Like that’s that’s you know, we talk about the fiscality all we want. The Magic foul a lot. That’s part of their strategy. That’s part of their philosophy. They’re not afraid to hit you. Um but the defense again largely did its job. It largely gave up the shots it wanted and Boston made those shots and Orlando again could not answer, could not consistently take advantage of what the def of of the of what the Magic’s defense did for them. And eventually, like we saw this throughout the year, the defense can’t play a lead for 48 minutes. No defense can play a lead for 48 minutes, especially against really good teams. Your offense has to carry a little bit of the load and lift the defense up and give the defense a chance. And it it it just didn’t happen. And Boston was like water finding a crack. Like it rushes through. It finds its way through. And again, in game five, they finally broke the dam. But the Magic’s defense is something they can build on. It is something they are still proud of. It is something that they’re not going to compromise on. For as much as we want to talk about players the Magic want to add, those players won’t play or won’t be even pursued if they aren’t going to commit on defense. If there’s intelligence saying that this guy will not play defense or is not a defender, take him off your list. It’s it’s that’s just the way it is with this team. That’s who this team is. That’s what defines this team. And it is the foundation that everything else is built on. Now, the playoffs so far, the second round has kind of shown us a a few truths that are that are slowly developing. One, shooting variance is a big deal. The Celtics did not make threes against the Knicks. They made threes against the Magic and because again Boston’s volume is so high um missing all those threes hurt them and and look New York made shots and all that. Indiana made a ton of shots against Cleveland again. They deserve it. They’re making this they’re creating these shots. They’re creating these looks. Three-point variance is just so big. You go back and look at that Oklahoma City Denver series. everybody was preparing to write Oklahoma City doesn’t have enough shooting that at the end of the day in the playoffs too many guys are missing critical shots. Lou Dort is being ignored at the three-point line. Um you know Julian Strawther goes crazy from three in game six to force the game seven. Uh Michael Porter Jr. was a nonfactor from three because of the injury because of the shoulder injury. Three-point variance, whether you like it or not, is a big factor in all these series. Like the Indiana New York series, is gonna come down to who makes shots. They’re both excellent offensive teams. I again, I’m a big believer in pace. Whoever is controlling the pace, controlling the tempo, that’s the team that’s going to be in rhythm to shoot. The more you chase, the more you’re gonna struggle. Again, that was a huge problem in the Orlando Boston series was that it even when Orlando was leading, it always felt like they were chasing because they’re so afraid of that Boston secret weapon. Orlando can’t keep up with Boston when they’re shooting threes the way that they can shoot threes. And so, it always felt like Orlando was chasing the game. And honestly, like to me, the most disappointing part of game five is that was the first game that the Magic felt like they were in control and Boston had to chase a little bit. But because Orlando can’t rely on their offense at all, cannot rely on their shooting, they’re only up two at the half when they needed to be up by 10. And then obviously then the fouls happen and then everything unravels. Take finding ways to take control of these games. That’s the honestly that’s as big as anything else the Magic have to figure out as they develop their next step. They have to find ways to be the ones in control to be the ones who determine uh determine how the game is being played. That’s that’s what a lot of these series come down to. Like Denver was in control at the start of game seven. They take Joic and Murray out. Oklahoma City gets a 6-0 run to end the end the the first quarter. Open the second quarter. Open the second quarter 6 run. That turns into a longer extended run and then the ball’s just rolling downhill at that point. Then they’re forcing turnovers. Then they’re getting easy shots. Then Denver’s the one chasing. That’s that’s kind of how these playoffs are being run. Look, we’re going to get into some CBA stuff tomorrow. And the CBA has a big hand in this because the way the finances in the league work now, you can’t keep teams together very long, at least these highric teams together very long. It’s just too expensive. And the rules make it really hard to keep teams together and keep adding to your team to get better. It’s it’s sort of like you you you know, you climb to the top of the mountain and you’re immediate. You’re it’s it’s literally like a roller coaster liftill. You you do that like slow clanka clanka clanka up the hill and then you get to the top and you cut and then you’re immediately down at the bottom of the hill again and you’re at the you’re at the whim of gravity at that point. That’s Milwaukee. Milwaukee like slowly kind of clanging up the hill. They caught fire. They made they made a deal for Damon Lillard that that I think everyone agrees they had to make. And now they’re at the whim of gravity. Now you’re at the whim of oh, we had an injury at the wrong time or or whatever it is. That’s kind of how the league’s going to go for a little bit until they until the new CBA and they probably correct some of these rules or fix some of these rules. Um it’s this is the reality of the league right now. And so yes, we have parody because of it. You know, we could sit here and say the Magic could be a conference finalist next year. And I don’t think that’s crazy to say because they have the top end talent to do it. They make the right move. They get the right matchup in the playoffs. Maybe they face the the right team at the right time. They’re in the conference finals. It’s not impossible. The question is, are they good enough to win a championship? But look, if you’re in the final four, you’re good enough to win a championship. If you make that final four, you are eight wins away. You’re in a seven game series. Anything can happen. And that’s as much of anything that we’ve learned in these playoffs as anything else. is that the way the league is set up now with all the parody that and and frankly the randomness, not just shooting variants, but injury variants, just like so many random things, not to mention even the quality of the coaching. David ad David Adelman stepping in late in the season and coaching the series he coached against Oklahoma City as well as a series he coached against the Clippers. Just fantastic stuff. you know, Chris Finch doing an incredible job at that Wolves team. If you would have told me that Wolves team would be back in the conference finals or Rick Carile that, you know, Rick Carlo’s one of the best coaches in the league, if you would have told us that that Pacers team would be back in the conference finals, we would all thought you were crazy. Even if you told us all the mess that Cleveland was going through, Kenny Atinson even a bad coach. I’m gonna there will I’m going to do an episode this week defending Jamal Mosley a little bit because I do think Jamal Mosley gets a bad rap from fans. I think he is unfairly blamed for a lot of things. I think he’s a darn good playoff coach. I think he’s done some great things in this two playoff series. It’s not the pathway to a deep playoff run. I think what we’re learning in this playoffs, a pathway to a deep playoff run is not far. You need the players, you need the system, you need the talent, you need all that stuff, but it isn’t far. And that’s why there’s so much pressure to make something of this off season for a number of reasons, some of which we’ll get you tomorrow. That’s why there’s so much pressure. The final four isn’t far away. The Magic have the foundation to get there. It’s going to take some luck. You need luck on your side. But it isn’t far away. But the Magic have a lot of things to learn before they get there and a lot of things to do before the season starts. And then they need some things to break their way when they get back to the playoffs next year. I want to thank you all again for listening to today’s episode of Lockdown Magic. You can of course follow me on Twitter, philipr_omd, and on blue sky, philipr. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcast. You’re tuning in Himley, Google Play, Spotify, Odyssey, and author Snow podcast to your podcast enabled listening device. You can also check us out on YouTube. Search for Lock Magic 4,000 subscribers. Would love to get there very, very soon. Appreciate you all for the loyalty, for the listens, for the everyday listens. We appreciate that all in its entirety. For latest on the Orlando Magic, be sure to check out Orlando Magicaily.com. You can find us on Twitter, Omagic Daily. And for even more Orlando Magic content where I just wrapped up my what went right, what went wrong series and I’ll be diving into player evaluations starting tomorrow probably. You can check that out at uh the Orlando Magic Hub, my Patreon page, the Orlando Magic Hub at patreon.com Orlando Magic Hub. As always, thank you for your support. Now that you’re done making locked on magic your first listen of the day, go make out lock go make locked on NBA big board your second listen of the day. NBA draft expert Rafael Barlo reacts to every workout interview and rumor leading up to the NBA draft. Find locked on NBA big board on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. That’s going to do it for me today though. I want to thank you all again for listening to today’s episode of Locked on Magic for Orlando Magic Daily and Lockdown Magic. This has been Philip Ross. We’ll see you all again next time for another episode of Locked On Magic.

The Orlando Magic learned a lot of lessons in their battle with the defending champion Boston Celtics. But they also saw how wide the gulf was between them and a title contender. It left a lot for them to consider and think about as they begin their offseason.

The Magic are not starting from scratch. They have a foundation to build upon with their defense and their two young stars in Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.

With the way the Playoffs have gone this year, it may not take much to turn the Magic into a conference finalist.

0:00 Intro: Lessons from NBA conference finalists
5:36 Magic’s foundation: Paolo and Franz as stars
11:46 Importance of offense to set up defense
18:26 Paolo and Franz’s potential as All-NBA players
24:04 Magic’s defense as a core strength
29:42 Controlling pace and tempo in playoff games
34:19 Conclusion: Magic’s path to contention

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