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By John Denton
Jan. 11, 2016
ORLANDO – Just as the Orlando Magic’s upcoming trip to London will be about trying to balance getting rest and avoiding rust, they will also be attempting to delicately balance business and pleasure.
For many of the Magic’s players, Monday night’s trip to London will be their first-ever foray in Europe, much less England. In between scheduled team outings to Buckingham Palace and The Tower Bridge and promotional appearances for the NBA, the Magic (20-18) will be trying to figure out how to get their season back on track following a few recent hiccups. And they will have to do so in the NBA’s Global Games London 2016 against a quality opponent in the Toronto Raptors (24-15) when the two teams face off Thursday at The O2 Arena. Tip-time is 3 p.m. ET.
“There’s got to be an equal balance – even if we weren’t going on a trip to London – you’ve got to be able to do your business and have fun as well,” Magic guard Victor Oladipo said. “If you don’t have that (balance), you are just going to stress yourself out – even though basketball isn’t stressful for me. So we’re going to enjoy ourselves, but also know that when it’s time for business, it’s time for business.”
The Magic’s charter for London is scheduled to leave Monday night and arrive in the UK by Tuesday morning. The team is scheduled to practice twice while there, hold a shoot-around session on Thursday morning and face the Raptors later that night. The team will arrive back in Orlando on Friday afternoon. Head coach Scott Skiles, a veteran of taking trips abroad both as a player and a coach, said his team will try to keep as much normalcy as possible throughout the trip that will span all or part of five days.
“Anytime you can represent the NBA outside of the country, not everybody gets to do that. So that’s good and maybe we can go over there, get a win and get ourselves back on track,” said Skiles, who put his team through a workout on Monday morning.
Magic guard Evan Fournier, a native of suburban Paris, said it’s a special honor for him to get to go back to Europe and play a game within hours of his home country. He is expecting to have a small cheering section of family and friends cheering for him – something that will be even more special in light of the terroristic acts that have horrified France in recent months.
“It’s nice because I will have my whole family there and I haven’t seen them in a long time since I left (in the summer),” Fournier said. “Hopefully I can spend a little time with them, make sure everything is fine and enjoy their company. But at the same time, we have to make sure we all take care of business while we’re there.”
Orlando likely won’t know until Wednesday or even Thursday morning as to whether or not it will have point guard Elfrid Payton, who has missed the past four games with a bone bruise in his ankle. Payton went through the non-contact portion of practice on Monday and he likely won’t see full-scale practice time until Wednesday.
Having dropped five of the past six games and sliding down in the jumbled Eastern Conference standings, the Magic know that righting their season is as paramount as the team’s foray to the UK.
“We have to wake up and make a stand,” said Magic center Nikola Vucevic, the team’s leader in scoring (17.1 ppg.) and rebounding (8.3 rpg.). “Obviously, if we don’t it’s going to be tough to achieve our goal and make the playoffs.”
Orlando is hoping to use the London trip to get some much-needed rest for a second-half push. The Magic will play just one time from Saturday’s home loss to Washington and Monday’s Martin Luther King Day early tipoff in Atlanta. The Magic hope to use their practice time to stay sharp and their time off in London resting and building chemistry.
Orlando has some recent experience travelling abroad. The team took a promotional trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from Oct. 13-18 and routed Flamengo in an exhibition game. Several of the Magic’s players feel that the trip to South America helped to bring the team closer and set the stage for the strong start to the season.
“It’s always good to get away and spend time with your teammates and build a bond and relationship with each guy here,” Oladipo said. “(London) is going to be fun and it will be a great trip for us. We’re hoping it’s a time when we can get away and get our minds right. We’ve got to grow as a team during this time.”
Orlando hasn’t shied away from playoff talk all season – even though the franchise hasn’t played in the postseason in three years. Head coach Scott Skiles has repeatedly told the team that he wants it to build habits that will not only win regular-season games, but also ones on the road in a difficult seven-game playoff series.
Skiles said the resolve in his team was strong even when it was 0-3 early on and limping along at 6-8. It was there when the Magic ripped off nine wins in November and impressively won 10 in December to help Skiles win the East’s Coach of the Year award for the month. Even now, as the Magic have dropped games to Washington (twice), Cleveland, Detroit and Indiana, they still have the focus on a brighter future. But the turnaround must begin now, forward Tobias Harris said.
“We can’t let this time pass because at the end of the year, we will be looking at a lot of games like these that are `what-if’ type of situations that we need,” Harris stressed.
Fournier feels like if the Magic can go to London and find a balance between rest and rust and between business and pleasure, it can go a long way in propelling the Magic over the second half of the season.
“It could be a turning point of the season because we’re almost halfway through the season,” Fournier said. “Pretty much we’re right now at that point where teams either keep winning or go opposite and get tired and forget what was working for them. You want to be on the other side of it and getting stronger.”
