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By John Denton
Dec. 15, 2015
ORLANDO – Rare is it the case when a player takes only slightly more than four shots a game and averages just 5.2 points a night and he’s still considered a key cog in an offense.
But that’s exactly the impact that sweet-shooting power forward Channing Frye has for the Orlando Magic, coach Scott Skiles says.
And if you think that Skiles is just partial because Frye plays for his Magic, consider the glowing praise bestowed upon the 6-foot-11 forward recently by Boston coach Brad Stevens.
“Channing’s a little bit like (Atlanta all-star guard) Kyle Korver or guys like that,” Stevens said. “Channing averages about (5.2 points) a game and Kyle Korver averages (10 points a game), but you fear them like they average 30 because of the way that they can change a game, making shots and going on 9-0 runs by themselves. They can change the outlook of a game and (Frye) is a guy who puts fear into you.”
When Frye is making 3-pointers – as he did three times in Orlando’s 105-82 thrashing of the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night – it has an enormous trickle-down effect on the Magic’s other players. And when the Magic are finding Frye on the perimeter, he makes the Magic offense hum like a well-oiled machine.
“In a couple of the games where he’s come out in the third and knocked down a couple of threes for us, we’re a totally different team,” raved Skiles, whose Magic (13-11) host the vastly improved Charlotte Hornets (14-9) on Wednesday night at the Amway Center. “It’s a very big weapon for us.”
That proved to be the case on Monday for the Magic when Frye drilled consecutive 3-point shots in the first quarter and it opened the floodgates for Orlando. The added space created by Frye’s shooting and the mere threat of him getting hot led the Magic to shoot 53.9 percent from the floor, hand out 24 assists and drill nine 3-pointers.
Here’s the true effect of Frye’s shot-making: Spacing out the defense allowed Nikola Vucevic (18 points) to dominate inside, it allowed Elfrid Payton (17 points) to repeatedly get to the rim and it created extra space on the wing for Tobias Harris (15 points). And it even led to Frye handing out a season-best five assists to go along with his 11 points, four rebounds, three 3-pointers and two steals.
“That’s a huge boost for us and it’s always good getting Channing going,” said Harris, Frye’s teammate and also his first cousin. “We’ve been wanting to get him going and (Monday) he got some open looks and he knocked them down. That opens the floor for us. Channing is the ultimate teammate because he sets good screens, he gets open and he’s real patient with his game.”
Looking for ways to snap out of their recent shooting slump, the Magic have made it more of a point of emphasis to get Frye more involved in the offense. Far too often, Skiles said, Magic guards have driven into traffic and failed to kick the ball back out to a waiting Frye on the wing. Also, the Magic want to look for Frye more when he’s trailing on fast breaks and with skip passes to catch the defense off balance.
Because teams know they have to stay up on the 41.9 percent shooter from 3-point range, Frye is rarely left alone along the stripe – even as Victor Oladipo, Payton and Harris are knifing to the rim on drives.
Frye is bane to force up difficult shots, but that’s what Skiles and his teammates are pressing him to do more of because of his long history of accuracy from beyond the arc.
“That time will come (when he’s more selfish), but for me I think I need to be more assertive – selfish is not the right word because I always try not to play bad basketball,” Frye said. “I feel like if somebody is contesting me, somebody else is going to be open and I try to find them. (Vucevic) got me a couple of assists and Tobias got me a couple of assists. If we can do that and come in with that attitude of the Atlantas, San Antonios, the Bostons and the Indianas now, we can do some good things and we’re going to be successful.”
Eager to get Frye’s shooting onto the floor more, Skiles changed the lineup 10 games ago, moving Oladipo to the reserves and putting Frye alongside of the starters. The effects were a five-game winning streak – a stretch where Frye drilled seven of the 15 3-pointers that he attempted. And that shooting created one-on-one opportunities for Vucevic inside, runs at the rim for Aaron Gordon and massive driving lanes for Evan Fournier, Mario Hezonja, Harris, Oladipo and Payton.
“When guys leave Channing and he starts hitting those threes it helps us so much. Then, when they have to creep over to him more it opens up lanes for me, Evan, Vic and all of us guards,” Payton said. “It’s just tough sometimes because guys don’t leave him. But we were able to find him in transition.”
Skiles has been on the Magic of late to seek out ways to free up Frye for more shots. The coach knows that Frye has to get far more than the 4.4 shots a game that he’s averaged so far. Of Frye’s 83 field goals thus far, 62 of them have been 3-pointers (74.6 percent).
“What’s happened to him is that we’ve missed him a bunch. Because teams pay so much attention to him that when he does finally get free we have to get it to him and at the right time,” Skiles said. “For a guy like that, who is an excellent 3-pointer shooter and everybody in the world knows it, it’s not like he’s going to be wide-open very much. But when we see him open and don’t throw it to him, that’s a mistake and we have to correct that.”
Skiles and Frye liked what they saw on Monday in Brooklyn as the Magic repeatedly swung the ball from side to side and they probed the defense in an inside-out way all throughout the game. Frye is hopeful that the Magic can continue to seek out not just good shots, but great shots when attacking foes.
“It’s not just me (hitting shots); you see that when we’re playing well, the ball’s not really touching the ground a lot,” Frye said of the side-to-side swinging of the ball. “It’s really just about us making good decisions. I’m just trying to take the right shots. I felt like this was the first time in a long time when I didn’t feel rushed and I knew when the ball was coming to me. And I was trying to make plays for other guys, making sure Tobias got shots and Evan got shots. It’s just about us getting great shots.”
