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By John DentonApril 5, 2016
ORLANDO – Watching Monday night’s epic finish to the NCAA National Championship Game – a thriller won by Villanova on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer – Orlando Magic center Nikola Vucevic was reminded once again why he loves the game of basketball.
And he was also reminded of just how much he wants to savor the taste of playing in big-time, must-win postseason games with the Magic.
“Wow,” Vucevic tweeted with six “flushed face” emojis immediately following Villanova’s 77-74 defeat of North Carolina on Kris Jenkins’ last-second shot. “This is why basketball is an amazing sport!!!!”
In his four seasons in Orlando, Vucevic has piled up a list of records and notable accomplishments as lengthy as one of those 20-foot jumpers that he strokes so effortlessly. However, Vucevic has yet to get to the playoffs in Orlando – something that troubles him, yet he’s been remarkably patient with handling his frustration. He, like many of his teammates, thought this would be the season for a Magic breakthrough, and that looked to be extremely possible following a 19-13 start to the season. But the lethal combination of a January swoon and a groin injury that knocked Vucevic – Orlando’s leading scorer (18 ppg.) and rebounder (8.9 rpg.) for a second straight season – out for 3 1/2 weeks killed Orlando’s playoff hopes.
Soon, Vucevic said on Tuesday following Orlando’s preparation for Wednesday’s home game against the Detroit Pistons, he wants the Magic to be in a position to play one of those ultra-tense, winner-take-all type of games that he watched in earnest on Monday night along with the rest of the sports world.
“The NCAA is totally different because it’s one game and somebody goes home, so it has a different feeling than the NBA, but it would be the equivalent to a Game 7 where you have no room for mistakes, you have to play perfect and there’s a lot of pressure,” said Vucevic, who appeared in three NCAA Tournament games during his college career at USC from 2008-11. “That’s the best part and why you play the game – to get to the playoffs and to get to those big games, especially the ones where you have to come through or you go home. There’s so much pressure, but as an athlete you want to thrive under that pressure because that separates the great from good players.
“I think everybody on this team wants to be in that situation,” Vucevic continued. “Unfortunately, we didn’t make it this year, but we’ve been closer and we had that feeling (of joy after certain wins). It’s even better in the playoffs and hopefully next year will be that time when we can come through and do something special around here.”
Even though the Magic (33-44) have already been eliminated from postseason contention, Vucevic and his Magic teammates have proven that they still have plenty to play for this season down the stretch. Orlando enters Wednesday’s game having won four of the last five games with three of the victories coming against teams (Chicago, Indiana and Memphis) still needing to win to stay in the playoff chase.
Vucevic, who returned last Thursday from the groin strain that shelved him for 13 games, has been a big reason why the Magic offense has kicked into high gear of late. Despite being out of action for 23 days, Vucevic has returned with a bang, averaging 23.6 points while shooting a jaw-dropping 68 percent from the field.
At one point during the Magic’s win in Indiana, Vucevic made 10 shots in a row – something he’s done now three times this season, making him the first player in the NBA to do that since, coincidentally, former Magic center Dwight Howard did it in the 2006-07 season.
Vucevic accomplished that feat while coming off the bench – something that prompted his teammates to playfully joke that he had found his niche as a back-up player and someone who should be pushed to win the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award. According to Elias Sports Bureau, Vucevic is just the second player in Magic history to score at least 20 points in three straight games off the bench, joining Jerry Reynolds (1991).
“I think he should come off the bench next year and I think he would give us a good punch,” joked Magic guard Evan Fournier, Vucevic’s best friend on the team. “No way, Vooch is definitely a starter. The way he’s playing right now is definitely impressive. He’s coming off an injury and he was out for three weeks and he’s been impressive. … He just makes the game look so easy.”
Being on Magic teams that have won just 20, 23, 25 and now 33 games the past four season has been anything but easy for the 7-foot Vucevic. When the Magic were forced to trade Howard in July of 2012, the franchise had to basically start over from scratch and the then-21-year-old Vucevic was one of the building blocks acquired. Since then, he’s set the franchise record for rebounds in a game (29), boosted his scoring each season over a three-year stretch and compiled a whopping 155 double-doubles (28 this season).
Little of that, however, added up to winning for Vucevic. Somehow, he’s remained upbeat and positive and he’s refused to let the losing sap his zest for helping to turn around the Magic.
“You understand that this is part of the process that we’re in because the team kind of started from zero (in 2012) and we all knew that it was going to take time,” said Vucevic, who along with Andrew Nicholson are the longest-tenured players on the Magic. “We understood that (the losing) was just something that we had to go through. Last year and this year are more frustrating because we expected more of ourselves. You try to do more and you come up short and that’s disappointing. But I am happy with the progress we made this year. I just wish we wouldn’t have had that rough patch in January and we never really picked it up until now.”
The “rough patch” Vucevic was referring to was a 2-15 record over a six-week stretch when the Magic started 2016 with four straight losses, fell twice to rival Washington and squandered late leads in two almost-certain victories against Charlotte and Memphis. Magic coach Scott Skiles lamented recently that if Orlando could have just managed to play .500 basketball during that stretch that they would be right in thick of the playoff race now.
Skiles was asked on Tuesday if Vucevic – as the team’s franchise player – could do more in the future to help the Magic avoid such stretches. Skiles pointed to some minor improvements that he’d like to see Vucevic make, such as holding his low-post positioning better and getting to the free throw line for a Magic squad that is last in the league in that category.
“One of the challenges for Vooch is the offensive end of the floor does come easy to him,” Skiles said. “He can make shots all the way out to the college three, he can shoot fade-aways and take guys down into the low post. When you’re gifted like that, he can make it look really easy. I think he’s done a good job this year of not letting (the ease with which he scores) affect his overall intensity. He’s a very, very talented guy.”
Vucevic said he has often wondered what more he could do to help speed up the Magic’s rebuilding process. He likes the potential of the current team and the pride that it has showed in playing hard even though there is little on the line. This season, he’s tried being more of an assertive and vocal leader on the team, even if he prefers to do it in his low-key, mellow style of talking to younger players individually off to the side.
Vucevic said he wants to do whatever it takes to help the Magic be in a position a year from now where it is playing the tense, high-pressure type of games that he watched on Monday night in college basketball’s National Championship Game.
“You can always do more as a player,” he admitted. “It’s not always by scoring more points or getting more rebounds, but it comes down to maybe helping to prepare the team better as one of the guys who has been here the longest. It’s only my fifth year, and next year will be my sixth season, but I saw it my (rookie) year in Philly, where the veterans would talk to guys about the need to focus more, watch film more and pay attention to the details. Maybe it’s those little details that matter in crunch time when you have to come through with the big plays. I’ve been through it enough and done it enough times that maybe I can speak up and help the team focus more in those big moments.”
