An abbreviated eight game regular season awaits the 22 teams allowed into the NBA’s mad-science project know as the “bubble”. Why even have these games you ask, well allow me to shed a bit of light on how this whole thing will work. The final 8 games will determine the playoff seeding for the 16 spots reserved for teams making the playoffs. Then its business as usual like any other playoff year, correct? Oh contraire!
This year, due to the most extenuating circumstances imaginable, there’s a bit of a caveat. Once the playoffs begin there will be no conference seedings, just the 16 best teams regardless of being from the East or West. Also the 8th and 9th seeds will play a mini play in round before the playoffs fully get underway. Again this also has its own little caveat.
Because there is no home court advantage this year due to all games being played at a neutral site without fans, the powers that be decided the higher seed needs a bit of a boost. The 8th seeded team must win only one game against the 9th seed opponent to move on, whereas the 9th seed team must win two games to get to the next round. Now with all this out of the way let’s move on to what this could all mean for the basketball team that plays in Orlando.
The Magic came into the season fresh off a playoff appearance which incidentally was the first in seven years. This led to some obvious optimism among the diehards as well as some fairly large expectations among the pundits. The thoughts being, a first round playoff series win after a season finishing higher in the standings was certainly attainable. Then came the mid season swoon after winning against the Lakers in mid January and it seemingly began to unravel. The Magic went 2 and 10 the next 12 games, making just getting to the playoffs the new hope around Disney.
Then came February. The magic dropped 3 games in a row to start the month, but two of those were against Boston and Milwaukee. Then the offense all of a sudden became virtually unstoppable helping the Magic real off 8 of 12 before Covid 19 decided to stop by unannounced. The last game played before the shutdown was a 120-115 win over the Grizzlies.
That win in Memphis made it three road wins in a row having beaten the Timberwolves and Rockets by double digits the two previous games. The pandemic has been terrible for everyone, obviously but from a purely NBA standpoint, it certainly hurt the Magic the most.
Now its anyone’s guess how teams will look after such a long layoff with no real preseason will affect one team to the next, but its safe to say the Magic will not resemble the team that was scorching the league pre-shutdown. The Magic are in a bit of an enviable spot having one of the softest schedules of the teams invited to the “bubble”. According to WinsAdded.com, the Magic have the fifth easiest road to get there.
While it looks likely the Magic do get in, they will face one of these three teams, Boston, Milwaukee or Toronto. This is not good news. The Bucks won handily both games. The Magic lost to the Celtics both times by double digits and Toronto won all three matchups this season. But If by some miracle the seas parted and the Heat ended up second and the Magic seventh, that would be the most interesting.
The Heat won 3-4 but the Magic win was a blowout followed by two Heat wins by double digits. The last time they played it was a very close 116-113 win for the Heat in a game that absolutely could’ve gone either way.
If the Magic can somehow recapture the offensive form they discovered with a league leading 118.2 offensive rating the last 12 before the shutdown, they’ll have a punchers chance against anybody they face. The field goal percentage was second in the league during that stretch with a scorching 48.6%. Three’s were also dropping more frequently improving to 37%, along with higher assist per game and free throw percentage numbers.
With the Wizards 5.5 back its almost a lock the Magic get in, but if they get bounced quickly out of the first round, this seasons optimism and hope will turn right back into the usual lament and despair. Nevertheless, if the Magic somehow pull off a first round upset, all the preseason hype will be well deserved and next season will truly be worth looking forward to.
