The Orlando Magic are still searching for consistent energy and effort to go out and win games. While that happened, the Sacramento Kings raced past.
Scott Skiles‘ rotations have come under fire throughout the early part of the season. He has mixed and matched players throughout the season so far looking for something that is consistent and plays up to his standards. Up to the standard the Magic needed.
Skiles was left searching yet again. When he found it the team caught fire again and erased a 16-point deficit. But the gap was too large, the margin for error too small and the time too short.
The last frustrating gasp came when Evan Fournier drove the lane and seemingly cut the lead to five points on a lay up. The referees called Fournier for an offensive foul as he apparently pushed off the defender. A frustrated Fournier was caught yelling down the court and he was hit with a technical foul.
The Kings pulled ahead by 11 and the Magic desperately tried to get back into the game but could not get all the way back as the Kings defeated the Magic 97-91 at Amway Center on Saturday night.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento | 97 | 96.4 | 42.6 | 22.2 | 15.9 | 38.3 |
| Orlando | 91 | 93.3 | 46.2 | 28.8 | 17.4 | 8.7 |
DeMarcus Cousins (SAC) — 29 pts., 12 rebs.; Rajon Rondo (SAC) — 13 pts., 7 rebs., 9 assts.
Tobias Harris (ORL) — 24 pts.; Nikola Vucevic (ORL) — 11 pts., 11 rebs.
“Too many times, we’re searching during the game, we’re just flat searching for anything to happen for us,” Skiles said. “Tonight it was more on the offensive end of can we find any lineup out there that can knock down a couple threes for us. We finally found a lineup and started to get back into the game. I wasn’t going to bust that up at that point.”
The search for consistent effort has been ongoing throughout the year. It explains why the Magic seemingly finish with a different lineup each game — and that closing lineup often does not include several starters.
Orlando cut into the lead with a group that finally put together some offensive energy late in the game and got it down to seven before frustration took over.
The frustration of lacking consistency and lacking much offense was the one that permeated throughout the game though.
Orlando shot just 41.3 percent from the floor and 9 for 31 from beyond the arc. The team started off the game moving the ball well, but hit just 1 of 6 3-pointers in the first quarter. At least three of those were open.
The Magic were playing well, just not hitting shots.
The team may have let the frustration of missing good shots get to it defensively. Orlando stayed close in the game, but could not find the energy to take control of the game or keep it within closer striking distance.
After the game, even Evan Fournier seemed astonished the team had missed so many shots.
“We started the game with so many open looks, one right after the other and none of them were in and out,” Skiles said. “They weren’t close and that can cause you to be a little demoralized for sure. You hope you’re not that week, but it can happen. But as that was happening we were losing them in transition. We moved the ball pretty well early on, we just couldn’t knock down a shot and that continued throughout the game.”
Despite finding some of that energy in the early part of the third quarter, the floor quickly fell out. In the final five minutes of the third quarter, Sacramento went on a 22-2 run. Orlando shot 1 of 8 in that span, committing five turnovers.
It put the Magic in a 16-point hole that proved to be too tough to climbe out of. Worse yet, the Kings shot five free throws in that stretch, as the Magic defense did not provide the backstop the team needed.
“They made a run, but at the end of the day we’ve have to be to come back a little stronger than that,” Tobias Harris said. “We have to find a balance of shots aren’t falling for us, the defensive end is where we have to be. We have to always be locked in defensively and be ready to get stops. We didn’t do that at that time.”
The Kings dictated the pace in that stretch and for much of the game. DeMarcus Cousins was a bull on the block for 29 points and 12 rebounds, including 13-for-15 shooting from the foul line.
Rajon Rondo had 13 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, filling up the stat sheet as he seems to do every game. The Kings shot just 38.3 percent but his 28 of 31 free throws.
The problem throughout the game was the defense was not the catalyst for the team. Harris said the defense has to be the catalyst for the team and be how the team builds its energy. It is something the team needs to buy into to improve.
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There remains fits and starts for this Magic team in that sense.
Again that came through in this game as the Magic could never quite build up the momentum it needed to overtake the Kings and win the game.
Tobias Harris was solid in scoring 24 points on 10-for-16 shooting, but he failed to make any of his four 3-pointers — and many of them were open looks. Evan Fournier scored 17 points, but hit on only 3 of 11 3-pointers.
The poor shooting seemed to affect the team’s mentality on the defensive end. The offense was bogged down and the defense suffered for it.
Fournier said in these moments, the team has to regroup, lock down the paint and chase shooters. It has to find the will to dominate the game defensively.
Holding the Kings to 19 percent shooting in the fourth quarter. The Magic locked the Kings down in the final 12 minutes.
As Skiles said, a team cannot expect to win playing 10-12 minutes of good basketball. The team did not have the energy it needed tonight to win the game. That eventually came back to haunt the team.
It is a lesson the team apparently still needs to learn.
“Nobody is going to give us a game,” Harris said. “We have to come out here and take it. Tonight, we just weren’t able to do that. We have to have more energy. I thought our energy wasn’t really there tonight. We weren’t good enough to come back. That’s the discouraging part, but we have to get better at that.”