Off-season a time to work

The season may have ended Sunday night, but the work is just starting for the Orlando Magic.

The Lakers bounced back to win the NBA title after losing to the Boston Celtics last season. Can the Magic do the same next season?

First things first.

After a few weeks and maybe a vacation, the roster that got the Magic to its second NBA Finals will break apart for the summer to work on their games.

This season the Magic surprised everyone but itself with its near-championship playoff run. But as good as the team was, its 4-1 Finals loss to the Lakers showed that there is still some fine-tuning needed before this team can stage celebrations and not witness them.

Last summer, Magic center Dwight Howard spent his off-season prepping for and then participating in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Although that did mean time on the basketball court, this off-season will provide time for a lot more focused, individual development.

Howard certainly made huge strides defensively in 2008-09, earning defensive player of the year honors as the league’s top rebounder and shot blocker. He also was able to dominate at times offensively by using his athleticism and new running hook.

Against the lengthy Lakers, though, he was taken out of comfort zones on both ends. Howard managed to keep Lakers center Andrew Bynum in foul trouble. But when Howard guarded 7-foot forward Pau Gasol, he had little to stop Gasol’s outside shooting ability.

And on the offensive end, Gasol’s length kept Howard from setting up in the paint -- neutralizing the power game and the hook that were his new go-to moves this season. It was almost the exact blueprint that made players such as Houston’s Yao Ming so effective against Howard earlier in the season.

It was that crack in Howard’s game that earned continued criticism from analysts and even biting words from NBA career scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who called Howard’s offensive skills “raw” during the series.

“Dwight is kind of limited offensively,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He does great right under the basket. You force him to do other things, he doesn’t have an answer for it yet. But I think that’s his challenge.”

Howard disagreed with the idea that he just tried to overpower the Lakers’ defenders during the series but said he would look to add some diversity.

“But at the same time, I’m 23,” Howard said. “Each year if you want to become a great player, you have to add something to your game. I think the running hook for me is something that I’ve added, and it’s taken a lot of wear and tear off my legs by doing that instead of trying to overpower and dunk on people the whole game. . . . I think [it was] more finesse.

” . . . But Kareem is right . . . I’ve tried to do the sky hook just like him, but he had more range and more touch. . . . I’m still working on it from the paint, so I’ve got a long way to go.”

As for Howard’s teammates, one thing that definitely stuck out in the Finals was the lack of offensive spacing at times and deficiencies in team rebounding.

When Howard was forced out of his sweet spots in the paint, the Magic’s ball movement suffered and turned into rushed shots, often without rebounders underneath.

But with the long summer, it’s nothing that the Magic players think can’t be fixed.

“That’s the good thing about this league -- you just learn from every opportunity, [from] every situation,” forward Hedo Turkoglu said. “I know it hurts right now -- we could have gotten our first championship . . . so we’re just going to put it behind [us] and hopefully we’ll be on the same page and go back to work.”

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khightower@orlandosentinel.com