In Game 4, Orlando was down six going into the fourth quarter and rallied, only to lose on Glen Davis’ game-winning jumper. In Game 5, they were up by 14 with 8:48 to play and were outscored 29-11 over the next nine minutes en route to a four-point loss.
Why can’t Orlando finish?
After Game 4, John Carroll wrote that the cause is four-fold. (ESPN Insider subscription required.)
1. The Magic don’t fully commit at the defensive end.
2. They refuse to pound the ball inside.
3. They fall in love with the three-point shot.
4. They don’t trust their coach the way the Celtics do.
No arguments with #1. In Game 4, the Magic allowed the Celtics to shoot almost 53% from the field. In the fourth quarter of Game 5, the C’s shot 11 of 19 (58%) during their tremendous comeback. That is not championship-caliber defense.
Likewise, #3 makes sense as well. For a team that takes a ton of threes — almost 31% of the Magic’s field goal attempts come from long range in the last two games — they have been terribly inaccurate (11 of 51, or 22%).
I can’t get in the minds of the Orlando players, so I don’t know how much trust they have in Stan Van Gundy.
But I can speak to #2…
