Orlando Magic get the lesson, get the win
The Orlando Magic faced another potential late-game collapse after losing a big lead. This time they held firm and took the game from the Sacramento Kings.
Following Wednesday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns, Tobias Harris was terse and frustrated.
The team was not performing to its potential. It was getting punched in the gut time and time again. They were not moving the ball and getting stuck as the Suns erased a double-digit deficit and took the win. They have seen leads collapse when there was seemingly no time for them to do so.
And it has happened again and again.
At some point the team needed to put the foot down and have it stop. They needed to close out a game and they needed to give the fans a home win.
It was not pretty — the collapse almost happened again — but it finally happened. The Orlando Magic can glean lessons about maintaining defensive and offensive intensity from a 119-114 win over the Sacramento Kings . They can take solace in the fact they closed the game out strong and took victory after the Kings erased an 18-point lead from early in the third quarter.
“We’ve been here so many times, it’s about time we came out here and got a victory and not blow this one.” — Tobias Harris
“I think the best thing about it is our composure, how we stuck with it,” Harris said. “In every timeout, nobody was pouting or had their head down. Everyone was just encouraging. We’ve been here so many times, it’s about time we came out here and got a victory and not blow this one.”
Nobody could have kept their composure as well as Harris.
He had a fourth-quarter 3-pointer taken off the board after referees reviewed and rightfully ruled he did not release it before the shot clock expired. That gave Rudy Gay a chance not to cut the lead to two points, but a chance to give the Kings the lead at the free throw line coming out of the timeout.
Gay was near unstoppable with 39 points as every player the Magic threw at him struggled to get a stop. Harris had the main duties and Gay was just hitting tough jumper after tough jumper over the top of the defense.
Orlando remained determined and pulled ahead by four with five straight points. They lost the lead again after a poor foul from Aaron Gordon on a Omri Casspi 3-pointer.
Harris though made the shot of the game. He got his redemption on an inbounds pass when Elfrid Payton delivered the ball to an open Victor Oladipo at the top of the key. Rudy Gay had to stop a scorching Oladipo from penetrating but Oladipo was a step ahead. In a previous game, the corner was open and as Gay creeped up, Oladipo found Harris in the corner.
He drained the 3-pointer and sealed the game.
The Magic were breathing more than a sigh of relief, they were determined to make these kinds of finishes where the team trusts each other on offense and moves the ball to the right location. It is hard to rack up 29 assists get a double double with 10 assists from Oladipo and 12 assists from Payton without that kind of determined, precise ball movement.
“I know when we’re making good passes and making good plays, it is something that we will get better at and learning. I was like, man, when we start hitting some threes, it’s really going to open up for the guys going to the rack. Today, 120 is a lot, but I think it’s not unachievable that we can to get to 100 points more especially if we are hitting threes and getting 40 or 50 points in the paint.”
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The offense had to be the story as the Magic dropped 119 points and scored a season-high 68 points in the first half. They shot 56.5 percent from the floor and 54.2 percent from beyond the arc. The Magic without Nikola Vucevic added 52 points in the paint.
For a team struggling on offense, this was a critical point to see the ball go through the hoop. The offense seemed to generate itself.
Orlando had several players step up as injuries plagued the team — Nikola Vucevic and Willie Green sat out. Andrew Nicholson responded with a season-high 14 points and some surprisingly strong play on the low block even defensively. Ben Gordon had 12 points too off the bench.
Harris added 19 points. His cousin Channing Frye got open looks and drained them, pulling the Kings away from the paint and forcing them away from using Jason Thompson for too long. Frye scored 22 points to go with 10 rebounds. The ball was moving to him and he got in a good rhythm.
Really the entire team was in a good rhythm. It was, as Harris said, exactly what the team needed as the group did the little things to keep the offense ticking — driving and kicking and making the extra pass. Things slowed down as Orlando struggled to get to the line, but the team had the reserves and the trust to stick to its sets and make big plays.
The defense needed its improvement. Without Vucevic on the floor, DeMarcus Cousins was a bull around the rim. The Magic struggled to meet his physicality in the paint and to stop the Kings from attacking the offensive glass. Even as Orlando made every shot, the defensive weaknesses were glaring.
That improved as the game slowed down and Orlando found its ability to execute when the game mattered most.
“When the game slowed down in the second half and teams pick up their pressure, there was a moment where we didn’t respond the right way,” coach James Borrego said. “But I think we got it back. We were better than last game, I will say that. Especially into the fourth quarter, when the game really slowed down, I thought we executed and we moved the ball. Twenty-nine assists, that’s a credit to our group trusting each other and executing our sets, which is what happens for the most part in fourth quarters.”
So was a lesson learned from Wednesday? Was this a game where the Magic could say they took a step forward?
That can only be told after the next game and the next situation the Magic find themselves in. For one night, the frustration gave way to relief and success. The team got the lesson while winning, and that might be more important in the end for the team’s future development.
“Eventually we’re going to learn,” Channing Frye said. “You keep getting hit in the head. Guys ketp believing today. We did a good job going over what we needed to get better at. Today, it kind of clicked. Hopefully we can grow from this.”