How The Magic Balance A Full Strength Offense

This Magic team is a different beast at full strength

The Magic's starting lineup has ranked among the league's best anytime they've been available this season, posting a +10 Net Rating in 161 minutes.

Those same 5-man units with Black or da Silva in place of Franz Wagner, or even with both Black and da Silva in place of Franz and Suggs, all are league-killer lineups ranging between 6-9+ Net Ratings; the Top-7 for this team is good together in many combinations.

This team's roles are split up best at full go, letting Franz and Paolo drive with maximum spacing, flanked with snipers Bane Suggs Black da Silva and Carter ready to catch and fire or attack closeouts. How much do they scale up touches for the secondary ball-handlers? That's a question that could be solved differently every night out.

So, who is supposed to take all the shots? Who should be passing to who? With all these ball-handlers available at once, Orlando Magic Head Coach Jamahl Mosley now has a good problem to have – divvying up shots among good shooters and touches among good scoring creators.

Orlando has a handful of staple sets it can rely on, such as Banchero-Bane pick-and-pops or the Wagner-Carter Connection in pick-and-roll, but how does the team find enough shots for all these reliable decision-makers while making sure to involve everyone in their best role for the team?

Before the final regular season home game of the year with Orlando hosting Minnesota, I asked Coach Mosley how he balances this Magic offense at full strength:

The ability to play our defense first — no matter who it is, where they are, they understand we gotta defend.

So when you are out and running, those are the answers themselves.

You push the pace. You get to your spots on the floor. You make the right play, the right pass, at the right time, and that’s good basketball.

That is how continuity is created, that is how you play off a flow with one another. That is a big portion of it for us.Jamahl Mosley

When it comes to the ball finding the open man, the team feeding the hot hand, Coach Mosley believes that those processes are the results of good defense, where a team consistently making the right play creates continuity off the flow the ball movement.

Orlando's defense returning to its previous elite state, with a healthy Top-7 for the first time in months, could alter this team's postseason outlook completely.

The Magic must figure out their rotation and split of touches and shots quickly, while there's time to tweak winning habits before the Playoffs.