Note: The contents of this page have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Orlando Magic. All opinions expressed by John Denton are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Orlando Magic or their Basketball Operations staff, partners or sponsors.
By John Denton
Jan. 19, 2016
ORLANDO – Some sobering perspective for an Orlando Magic squad that raced to a feel-good 19-13 start, but has careened back to Earth and sits at a confounding 20-20: Last season, the franchise’s 20th victory didn’t come until March 6.
To take it even further back, the 20th win didn’t come until March 25 in 2014 and not until April 10 in 2013.
None of that, of course, means much now to a Magic team that had infinitely higher expectations of itself this season. As it should have expected more considering the collection of young and dynamic talent in place and the addition of no-nonsense head coach Scott Skiles, someone who worked wonders with Orlando’s defense early in the season.
How, one has to wonder, does the Magic avoid the inevitable “here we go again” feel now considering that they have lost seven of the last eight games and fallen out of the top eight in the jumbled Eastern Conference? They are able to shove away those thoughts, forward Tobias Harris said with conviction, because of the belief that this isn’t the same team that won just 20, 23 and 25 games the past three seasons.
“We’re going to get it back and I have confidence in that,” said Harris, one of three captains on the roster. “We’ve got the right group here to do it. I believe in that and I’ll stand by that.”
As the Magic (20-20) head into Wednesday’s home game against the steadily improving Philadelphia 76ers (5-38) – the first game at the Amway Center since Jan. 9 – the Magic can lean on experience from a time when their mettle was put to an extreme test.
Orlando suffered back-to-back gut-punch losses to open the season when it squandered a late lead against Washington and fell in double-OT to Oklahoma City after Russell Westbrook banked in a shot from half-court at the end of regulation. The Magic rebounded from those losses with a string of wins and they also came back from a late-November shelling at the hands of Cleveland to go 13-5 over a five-week stretch of late November and December. That ability to fight back at various times during the season has given Skiles every indication that the Magic are capable of turning things around starting Wednesday night at the Amway Center.
“If we were 10-30 right now and had shown no signs of any toughness or resiliency or anything, you’d be more than concerned,” Skiles said, chuckling at that chilling thought. “Then, you’d have to start looking at guys and figuring out what to do (with trades), but that’s not what’s happened here. We’ve shown some good early-season toughness. And then we’ve shown the other side. So it’s a good part of the season to figure out who we are and what we’re going to be the rest of the year.”
Who the Magic could be on Wednesday night could look different than the one that struggled on both ends of the floor and lost 98-81 in Atlanta on Monday. That game highlighted how far the Magic have fallen in terms of sharing the basketball and playing with a collective toughness on the defensive end of the floor. Orlando had just 21 assists, and many of those came in garbage time of the fourth quarter. Defensively, the Magic allowed the Hawks to repeatedly get into the lane to set up easy looks (48 paint points) and Atlanta shot better than 60 percent from the floor most of the game.
Skiles, someone who has shown that he won’t simply sit back and wait rough times out, has tinkered with the starting five twice before this season and produced results. Inserting Channing Frye on Nov. 24 jump-started a five-winning winning streak and the 13-5 stretch. Putting Victor Oladipo – who since sprained his right knee and is out for an indefinite period of time — into the lineup brought out the guard’s best shooting (20.4 points and 60 percent 3-point shooting over a five-game stretch) of the season. Moving an elite defender such as Aaron Gordon – a player who can guard four positions late in games when teams go to pick-and-roll sets – might be Skiles’ next play.
Following a lengthy film session with his team on Tuesday, Skiles pointed out that it is difficult to play defense in the NBA because athletes are so good and teams are so well-prepared via scouting. What troubles Skiles the most about the slippage defensively has been his team’s unwillingness to totally buy in on that end of the floor. Being an elite defense takes a high level of trust and grit in terms of multiple efforts, and Skiles said a turnaround likely won’t come until the defensive toughness picks up again.
“The (defensive) schemes are simple, but it’s hard to do it,” said Skiles, whose team climbed as high as fourth in the NBA in total defensive efficiency six weeks ago but sits at a disappointing 13th today. “We’ve had significant slippage on that end and we’ve got to work to get it back. We worked our way up to where we were looking like we were clearly going to be a top-10 defensive team. I don’t use that word `work’ lightly because the guys worked their way into that position being very contentious, having a really good training camp, weathering a couple of really tough early losses and looking really resilient. And then we’ve lost it. There’s nothing to do but work again and try to get it back.”
Nikola Vucevic, Orlando’s leading scorer and rebounder for a second straight season, has been around for all 3 1/2 seasons of the Magic’s rebuild. Like Harris, he fully believes this team has infinitely more talent and fight than the ones before that saw previous seasons get buried under an avalanche of bad losses. Vucevic said the Magic repeatedly showed what kind of team they were early in the season, and now it’s just a matter of finding the spark to ignite their fire.
“We talked about it today, those losses (to Washington and OKC to open the season) were two or three of the toughest losses we’ve had the whole year and we fought through them. We’ve just got to get back to that,” said Vucevic, who is still trying to recapture the form that led him to being a Eastern Conference Player of the Month candidate in December with one of the best stretches of his NBA career. “We’ve got to come back to being resilient like we were – playing together and playing hard all the time. We have to fight through the ups and downs and do what we do.”
Gordon, the second-year forward whose game has started to blossom of late, said much of the team’s slippage has been because of a loss of trust among the group. Chemistry can be a finicky ingredient in a NBA locker room. Often teams can’t pinpoint the source of it when they have it and can’t locate it when it’s missing. But it’s obvious when it’s there and when it’s not.
So much of the Magic’s offense and defense are based on trust – sharing the ball on offense to get great shots instead of good shots; helping one another on defense and making multiple efforts to close down driving alleys and shooting windows. One win, Gordon said, could go a very long way in helping the Magic build a belief again and turn around their season.
“We have to really rely on each other, instead of fracturing, and come together and be one unit flowing together,” said Gordon, who had 18 points and seven rebounds off the bench on Monday night in Atlanta. “We know it’s there inside of this team. We have all of the talent that we need and we really just have to pick it up now and pick each other up.
“Really, it comes down to trusting each other both offensively and defensively,” Gordon continued. “Right now, it’s about giving up individual goals for the team goal. We’re going to have to will it for a couple of games to get this thing back to normal. But we’re going to come back on Wednesday and get back to work on this.”
