Orlando Magic, Victor Oladipo falter late as Kyle Korver sinks Orlando Magic

Victor Oladipo committed the one sin no team can against the Atlanta Hawks. And Kyle Korver made the Orlando Magic pay in a 103-100 loss at Amway Center.

The refrain had to be hammered into Victor Oladipo throughout the game, you cannot leave Kyle Korver. Even within the Orlando Magic’s defensive principles of flooding the strong side, Korver had to be within closing distance if the ball whipped to him.

That is easier said than done. A little dribble penetration can suck a defense in and cause some help-side defenders to stray too far.

It is the power of Kyle Korver’s gravity. And when a defender leaves him that open, the supernova occurs.

Even with these warnings and recurring problems, Victor Oladipo got sucked in. It was all on him, and he admitted it. At the critical time Oladipo made one mistake and compounded it with another.

With the game tied at 100, Jeff Teague drove through the lane and got past his man, sucking Vucevic into the paint and Oladipo to tag his man crashing the basket. Teague escaped and dished out his first assist to Korver in the corner. Oladipo was too late and he drained the shot.

Looking to redeem himself, Oladipo got into the lane and turned the corner again too. He sought Tobias Harris open in the corner but the ball was stolen by Paul Millsap.

A good defensive stop later and Oladipo had one more chance to redeem himself.

He came through an elevator screen and caught the ball with a chance to tie the game. The Hawks were switching screens and Millsap smothered him, preventing any look at a 3-pointer.

His pass to Nikola Vucevic was too late and Vucevic could not get a shot off at the buzzer, allowing the Hawks to escape with a 103-100 win at the Amway Center on Sunday.

Kyle Korver (ATL) — 19 pts.; Paul Millsap (ATL) — 13 pts., 13 rebs.
Nikola Vucevic (ORl) — 20 pts., 11 rebs.; Evan Fournier (ORL) — 17 pts.

“They did a great job keeping us in a bind and keeping us on single-side tags,” Oladipo said. “I had to be in and to fly out to Kyle Korver. The last play is just dumb. I shouldn’t have left him. I was thinking help, I have to know I’m on Kyle Korver obviously. I take full blame for that. The turnover at the end obviously as well. At the end of the day, I made a mistake. I have got to move on and learn from it. You can put that on my shoulders, that’s fine with me.”

The Hawks had the Magic in that bind for much of the game. The Magic 46.9 percent from the floor and just 4 for 12 from beyond the arc. Atlanta put together a 14-0 run in the second quarter to take a double-digit lead and control of the game.

Much of that was done with simply strong defense, keeping the Magic’s dribble penetration under control and physically impeding the team. That may have hurt the Hawks later in the game as the Magic came back on a 16-0 run in the third quarter and made all 14 free throws they took in the third quarter.

Orlando simply could not get the stops it needed consistently. And that was as evident on the Korver 3-pointer as it was throughout the entire game.

Coach Scott Skiles said the directive was to stay on Korver at that moment. There was a brain lock on the play, in his words. The Magic defense just was not consistently strong all game long.

“Overall our defense was terrible to the point of being laughable almost,” Skiles said. “We had a very high mistake game. We only had 13 turnovers, but just a lot of busted possessions on both ends. We just had so many plays that were flat mistake plays. We still had a chance to win, but during [the 16-0 run in the third quarter], we weren’t making many mistakes, the crowd was starting to get into it and then we kind of shot ourselves in the foot.”

Some of those mistakes included Mario Hezonja giving up back-to-back 3-point plays in one of his stints or Andrew Nicholson checking into the game and immediately committing a charge. Orlando was not completely sharp on the defensive end throughout.

The Hawks shot 50.0 percent from the floor, 11 for 22 from beyond the arc and 70 percent from the foul line. Only 24 teams have put together a 50/50/70 game so far this season. They all won.

Just on those numbers alone, the Magic seemed to put themselves in a bit of a bind.

The Magic though were not completely terrible on defense. They forced 20 turnovers including 16 steals and five from Elfrid Payton. The Magic turned those turnovers into 24 points. Orlando had 13 fast-break opportunities.

And things were not all bad for Oladipo. He made only 2 of his 11 shots, but had six assists including a behind-the-back pass to Evan Fournier for a dunk.

Orlando had moments where it played good defense. It was just nowhere near to the standard Scott Skiles has set for this team or the team has set for itself in the past 26 games.

“We’ve had some ups and downs,” Nikola Vucevic said. “We’ve played some pretty good teams as well. We just have to do what we do, be focused, be aggrssive and do it for 48 minutes. There are teams that are really good at moving the ball and making you work. On some plays we were able to play really good D and they were able to find an open guy. Sometimes that’s going to happen. We know what got us to 15-12 now. We just have to keep it going and try to get better.”

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The numbers and the result prove that. The Magic were not getting stops consistently or scrambling around. They were making these little mistakes that cost them games.

It was hard for Skiles to pinpoint where specifically things were not sharp for the majority of the game. It was everything. There were pockets of strong play.

He said there were a lot of “one-effort plays” and the team needed multiple efforts to be a good defensive team.

While the Magic are better this year and have given themselves plenty of opportunities to win — just like they ended up doing Sunday — it still takes a little bit more.

And defense still takes individual plays.

Oladipo, touted as an all-NBA defensive player by Skiles just a day ago, had a game that made him look more human on that end. How he and his team respond will be more critical to the Magic.

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“I take the blame for this loss, but it won’t happen again,” Oladipo said. “Guaranteed.”