Orlando Magic fail to mature, falling hard to Oklahoma City Thunder
The Orlando Magic once again looked brilliant and built a lead in the third quarter. And it all came crashing down again behind Russell Westrbook’s outburst
38. 139. 149. Final. 136
The sellout Amway Center crowd was ready to celebrate a win as the Orlando Magic came to the bench to end the third quarter. Orlando had worked brilliantly to move the ball with 21 assists on 38 field goals and moved the ball quickly. They held the Oklahoma City Thunder to 39.4 percent shooting through three quarters.
The 18-point lead was well earned. The Magic looked in complete control and ready to make a statement win. Progress was at hand.
In 12 basketball minutes, the coronation turned to horror yet again. The Magic would be that two percent according to Inpredictable who would lose an 18-point lead to start the fourth quarter and go on to lose the game 139-136 in double overtime.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma City | 139 | 110.6 | 49.1 | 38.6 | 14.2 | 34.6 |
| Orlando | 136 | 107.3 | 50.0 | 25.9 | 12.8 | 35.9 |
Russell Westbrook (OKC) — 48 pts., 11 rebs., 8 assts.; Kevin Durant (OKC) — 43 pts.
Nikola Vucevic (ORL) — 30 pts.; Victor Oladipo (ORL) — 21 pts., 13 rebs., 10 assts.
They would succumb to the same bad habits that made this the worst team in the league during the past three years. Some old bad habits die hard.
And Russell Westbrook too.
Russell Westbrook took over the game in the fourth quarter. He scored eight points in a 16-6 run in the final three minutes of the game, ending with Kevin Durant finally tying it with 13.5 seconds left.
The Magic would run out the clock and have the final possession or so they thought. Victor Oladipo drained his first big 3-pointer of this night to give the Magic a three-point lead with 3.9 seconds left.
The team may have given a brief sigh and celebrated in the moment. But Russell Westbrook did not. He drove the ball more or less unimpeded beyond half court and fired a pull-up from 38 feet.
Banked and in.
“We relaxed a little bit,” Victor Oladipo said of Westbrook’s game-tying 3-pointer in regulation. “We should have turned him twice and maybe the shot wouldn’t have counted. We just had to pick him up full and turn him twice. It’s a learning process when things like that happen, we can’t relax. I’m guilty of it, everyone here is guilty of it. We just have to move on.”
Oklahoma City took control of the overtime periods and held the lead throughout the final 10 minutes. Victor Oladipo and the Magic mustered enough energy and urgency to force a second overtime when Oladipo drained a heavily contested 3-pointer from the corner.
The Magic could not take back control in the second overtime. They missed key free throws early and had to scramble again to get back in it.
Down by three points on the final possession, Kevin Durant blocked an Evan Fournier attempt from the corner out of bounds and then blocked one more from Oladipo.
The Thunder had completed the comeback and a 139-136 win over the Magic at Amway Center on Friday, leaving the Magic scratching their heads on another late game gaffe.
“It’s a tough loss to take,” Tobias Harris said. “We put ourselves in position to win the game and we came up short. Obviously it’s discouraging because it’s two nights in a row. We just have to stay positive and take the positive out of the game and keep moving forward. It was our game, it was right there for us, and we let it slip away.”
The Magic got great contributions up and down the roster in putting themselves in position to win.
Victor Oladipo recorded his second career triple double and tied his career high in rebounds with 21 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists (ignore that 8-for-27 shooting performance). Tobias Harris had 30 points and nine rebounds, getting to the line for 12 free throw attempts. And Nikola Vucevic had 26 points, making his first nine shots of the game.
It was the fourth quarter that changed everything as the team got tight again in crunch time. Oklahoma City relied heavily on Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant — 91 points between the two — and put an onslaught on Orlando for 42 points.
“When it got tight in the second half and you could see Russell start to pick it up and get in the passing lanes, we had trouble even kind handling the ball,” Scott Skiles. “We got away from what we were doing. We tried to play hard again. Obviously we had a lot of difficulty with both of those guys.
“The same as the other night, we probably played well enough to win the game, but when it’s time to make plays, we’re just struggling right now.”
This was the Russell Westbrook show. He would score 27 of his 48 points in the fourth quarter and overtime simply willing his team to a victory.
The Magic contributed too though.
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Through three quarters, Orlando had a 50-36 advantage in points in the paint. The Thunder went on to score 20 points in the paint to the Magic’s six — on 3-for-10 shooting — in the fourth quarter.
Orlando is still building its offense and defense and learning the principles as second nature, but there is still a lot of work to do and progress to make.
“We have to get better, we have to keep trusting each other and we have to keep, especially in the fourth quarter when team defenses start to lock in, to keep moving the ball even more than before,” Tobias Harris said. “We have to get the best shot every possession. That’s something that we have to keep learning.”
The trust is a process for sure. But the team has had the chances to win. Despite all the positives, the losses still leaves an empty feeling throughout though.
The Magic played their first two games with leads late in the fourth quarter. Orlando led by five points with two minutes to play in the opener against Washington and by 10 points with about three minutes to play against Oklahoma City.
Both of those are good teams for sure, but the Magic let both leads slip away. In a season of no excuses as the players say, that is an opportunity to be 2-0 turned into 0-2.
Orlando has played well enough to win both times on the floor. The team now is just trying to make sure the disappointment does not carry over and build up. The team has to take the positives.
But results still matter. That is what this whole season is about in the end.
“There are some little things within games that we need to get better at,” Victor Oladipo said. “But we’re right there. We believe it. Coach Skiles believes it. We just have to get it done. Like we said, no more excuses we just have to get it done.”