Orlando Magic head coach Steve Clifford wants his squad to stop watching rebounds and to start grabbing a lot more of them. Here’s the Orlando Sentinel reporting:
The Magic have been out-rebounded in two consecutive games and Clifford wants his squad to be far more physical. The NBA has evolved into a perimeter-shooting league, which means there often are longer rebounds coming off the rim. But far too many times Wednesday, shots caromed off the rim and the Magic did not even have a player in the paint to battle for the ball.
“It’s hitting more, getting more guys in there. I know it sounds silly but if we got five guys in there fighting for the ball and they got three … I just showed them a couple of clips where it happened last night, where [if] we got everybody in there fighting for the ball, then we have a better chance to get it,” Clifford said. “It’s a major challenge for our team and we gotta get better at it.
“Say what you want, Lillard was phenomenal last night (41 points), both [Kevin] Durant (49 points) and [Klay] Thompson (20 points) were great at Golden State and if we rebound better, we win both of those games. We’re doing a lot of good things, but if we don’t get the rebounding stuff down, it may not matter.”
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