Orlando Magic unsatisfied, but relieved by win over Los Angeles Lakers

In one hand, Nikola Vucevic‘s buzzer beater delivered the Orlando Magic a win they may not have deserved. On the other, there is still much work to do.

Winning is always better than losing. No matter how a team can get them. It is always better.

That statement does not take a genius to understand. For a team that has struggled for three years to do that exact act, it is an important reminder. Not an excuse to fix the things that make winning sometimes extremely ugly.

So when Orlando’s defense relied on Elfrid Payton to defend Lou Williams into a contested mid-range two-pointer that failed to hit the rim and became a 24-second shot clock violation. That provides hope.

And when Nikola Vucevic hits a fading-away turnaround jumper with no time remaining over Roy Hibbert — a shot Vucevic called more luck than skill — you take it. You are not happy with it, but you take it.

The Magic were not thrilled with how they played, not in the least. They were frustrated by poor attention to detail on defense, poor shooting at the rim and missed opportunities on all fronts.

The scoreboard though never lies. And it is better to win ugly than lose disappointingly. The Magic did that in a 101-99 win over the Lakers at Amway Center on Wednesday on Nikola Vucevic’s game-winning heave.

Roy Hibbert (LAL) — 15 pts.; Julius Randle (LAL) — 12 pts., 8 rebs.

Shabazz Napier (ORL) — 22 pts.; Tobias Harris (ORL) — 11 pts., 11 rebs.

“Mostly we didn’t play very well,” Vucevic said. “I thought we should have played much better, especially on the defensive end. We never took them away from what they to do. We never really showed what we can do on defense. They were getting whatever they want. We got away with this one, but we have to play much better.”

Vucevic was not even supposed to play. Having missed the least three games with a bone bruise in his right knee, Vucevic said he was feeling good in the morning and opted to go through the team’s shootaround in the afternoon. After feeling good through that, Vucevic felt good again and had a second workout to test the knee and make sure he was good to go.

Having passed all that, Vucevic came off the bench to score 18 points and grab five rebounds in 25:34 of action. A solid return for sure.

It was all necessary though as the Magic struggled mightily to get any traction offensively or find consistent energy defensively.

Los Angeles shot 49.4 percent from the floor and did a good job dictating the tempo of the game. The Lakers did not get complete traction, shooting just 7 of 22 from beyond the arc and committing 14 turnovers for 21 Magic points, but they stayed in the game.

Orlando struggled itself to move the ball. The team had 22 assists on 40 field goal makes and took 100 shots total for the second time this season. The Magic grabbed 23 offensive rebounds to get that number up that high, but converted on for only 19 second-chance points.

The Magic scored 32 points in the paint on 16-for-49 shooting and hit just 16 of 44 shots at the rim according to NBA.com.

“If we really want to look at the end game of our identity, we have to continue to get better defensively and be crisp.” –Channing Frye

“It was terrible,” Channing Frye said. “But we won, so that’s good. You can play bad and grind it out and win. So now it’s how can we be more consistent? How can we finish at the rim. I felt like we had some big stretches where we didn’t play defense at all. That’s not who we want to be. If we really want to look at the end game of our identity, we have to continue to get better defensively and be crisp.”

Orlando’s sloppy play was maddening. A more focused effort, particularly on the defensive end, could have led to a much different outcome for the team. And what frustrated coach Scott Skiles most was the lack of attention to detail which he has stressed since the beginning of training camp.

Skiles was not at all satisfied with just getting a win in the end. He noted his team was getting some pushback and losing attention to detail on defense with simple things like getting a hand up and high to contest shots rather than reaching in.

That nearly came back to haunt the Magic when Elfrid Payton was called for reaching on Lou Williams on a 3-pointer. Williams sank all three free throws to bring the Lakers to within two points with about two minutes to go.

Again the Magic lost a five-point lead late thanks to their own mistakes.

The Magic just could not get things moving throughout the game. That is until Shabazz Napier caught fire in the second half.

He scored 17 of his career-high 22 points in the second half, catching fire from beyond the arc for four second-half 3-pointers. His shot got the Magic offense moving again. It was the spark the team needed.

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“It was a good night for me,” Napier said. “As a team, I think we did a lot of good things. A lot of things we need to work on defensively. As a team, I think we did a lot of things good. In the end, if you do a lot of things good, you get a win. I’m definitely excited about that.”

The Magic did some good things for short stretches, particularly when Napier went on his run. And that got the team moving again and made it look like they might be ready to bust out.

It never really lasted long. And the Magic’s inability to execute outweighed the positives — getting into the paint for field goal attempts, offensive rebounding.

The Magic though got what they wanted most of all though. They found a way. They can clean things up in practice tomorrow.

It wasn’t pretty, but we kept grinding and kept fighting,” Vucevic said. “We said the whole game we were trying to get it going. For some reason couldn’t. we looked sluggish out there. But we found a way. That’s what’s most important. There are nights like that. It’s good that we came up with a win, but next game we have to do much better. We’re not always going to be able to get away.”

It feels good to win, as Frye said. A lot better than losing.