{"id":10188,"date":"2025-10-18T19:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T19:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10188\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T19:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T19:59:07","slug":"faster-pace-among-notes-from-preseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10188\/","title":{"rendered":"Faster pace among notes from preseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the results of any given preseason mean nothing in the grand scheme of an 82-game regular season, let alone the NBA<\/a> playoffs, the Magic<\/a> didn\u2019t let up against their opponents.<\/p>\n

Orlando<\/a>\u2018s 4-0 exhibition record marks the third time in franchise history that the Magic have ended the preseason undefeated. The other times were 2009-10 (8-0) and 2010-11 (7-0).<\/p>\n

Far more important than the final scores of the tune-ups was how the Magic themselves looked on the court in comparison to what they set out to accomplish in order to prepare for the regular season.<\/p>\n

For Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley<\/a>, that meant experimenting with starting lineups and rotations to figure out what they\u2019ll look like come opening night while making sure his team remained healthy throughout the preseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really did like our ability to push the basketball,\u201d Mosley said about Orlando\u2019s fourth and final preseason game after practice Saturday at the AdventHealth Training Center<\/a>. \u201cThat one big takeaway was our sprint game, our ability to run and share the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the Magic flip the page on the preseason, it\u2019s worth examining where Orlando stands heading into their regular season that starts Wednesday:<\/p>\n

Offensive strides<\/p>\n

From Day 1 of training camp through Saturday\u2019s practice, Mosley has continued to emphasize pushing the pace in transition and playing faster in the halfcourt offense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small sample size but the Magic averaged 126.5 points in four preseason contests, the second-most points per night in the league.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s overall offensive rating for the preseason ended at 122.2, which was second-best league-wide<\/a>. Diving deeper, the Magic\u2019s offensive rating in the first half (which was when Mosley played his starters in majority of the preseason) sat at 112.7, or middle of the pack in the NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In order to keep up the pace throughout the season, Mosley has focused on conditioning during camp. He\u2019s pleased with where his teams stands in that perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really do believe our conditioning is getting up to par for where we need to be,\u201d he said after practice Saturday. \u201cWe\u2019ve still got some steps to take but I\u2019m going to keep harping on the fact that these guys are just really trusting and sharing the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defensive work<\/p>\n

Mosley said defense was the main focus of Saturday\u2019s practice, including getting a better understanding of where the team needs to be located positionally on the court.<\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s defense rating for the preseason ended at 107.5 or 12th in the NBA<\/a>. For the first half, it was 110.8 or 19th in the league<\/a>. An area of needed improvement is transition defense, where the Magic allowed the ninth-most points off turnovers in the preseason (23.5 opponent points off turnovers per game), according to league-tracking data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefensively, we\u2019ve got to continue to get better at getting back in transition [and] finishing out possessions,\u201d Mosley said.<\/p>\n

The Magic coach doesn\u2019t want Orlando\u2019s faster pace on offense to impact its defensive efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to do both,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cI\u2019ll keep reiterating, the strength [of our team] is our depth and our guys\u2019 ability to come in the game and be able to defend the right way and push that pace the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franz\u2019s free throws<\/p>\n

For the preseason, the Magic shot 82.9% at the charity stripe, which was up from last year\u2019s regular-season mark (77.5%).<\/p>\n

Forward Franz Wagner<\/a> led the team in free throw shooting when he made 19 of 20 attempts in just three appearances. For comparison, Wagner shot just 8 free throws total in three exhibitions last year and made 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we play fits me, fits my style really well,\u201d he said this week. \u201cI work on finding bumps and stuff like that in my workouts. It\u2019s good to see that pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the results of any given preseason mean nothing in the grand scheme of an 82-game regular season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-10188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}