The Orlando Magic again succumbed to the Washington Wizards’ pressure and speed as they dug themselves a hole they couldn’t climb out of and lost again.
The confidence was quickly shut off. The good feelings of breaking a losing streak and building some defensive momentum in the team’s principles silenced as quickly as John Wall could move from one end of the court.
Washington was going to dictate the terms for this game as the team has dictated the terms of this series for the past three years. The Wizards were going to control the pace and tell the Magic when they were going to score.
Their defensive pressure put the Magic on their heels early. The turnovers had them staggered. And the fast-break points were the death blow. Or not the death blow, but certainly the one that had Orlando constantly scrambling.
Scrambling up a hill the Magic could never climb. A hill they have not been able to climb for three years now.
Maybe the better analogy is a wall.
John Wall scored 24 points and had 10 assists to help push the Wizards’ tempo up to the tune of 20 fast-break point on 10 fast-break field goal attempts. Fourteen of those fast-break points came in the first half.
Washington led by 11 at halftime and never really let go, taking it to Orlando — “punking” the team as Evan Fournier put it — in a 105-99 win at Amway Center on Saturday that was really closer than the final score indicated.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | 105 | 114.9 | 63.8 | 13.3 | 16.4 | 13.2 |
| Orlando | 99 | 111.8 | 54.7 | 32.4 | 16.9 | 32.4 |
John Wall (WAS) — 24 pts., 10 assts.; Otto Porter, Jr. (WAS) — 16 pts.
Nikola Vucevic (ORL) — 23 pts.; Aaron Gordon (ORL) — 10 pts., 10 rebs.
“That’s what they do,” Evan Fournier said. “They keep playing the same way against us. They try to punk us and try to be more aggressive. It’s working for them. For some reason, we don’t answer back. I don’t know why, it’s so frustrating.”
Washington forced six turnovers in the first quarter alone, converting on 12 points off turnovers and 12 fast-break points. The team’s physicality with Orlando knocked Orlando off its game and slowed the ball movement to a crawl.
The Magic, it seemed, were spending time getting their footing and trying to find the right counterpunch. Players were forcing drives more and potentially missing pass opportunities. Orlando was more than a step off as the team could not solve Washington’s physical style of play.
The turnovers at the top of the key were especially damaging, particularly early, just dug the Magic a deep hole against a team that is trying increasingly to use its speed to beat opponents — to limited success, just not against the Magic.
“That’s what happened to us early in the game, exactly what we can’t have happen, turn the ball over around the free throw line area against them because they’re explosive then on the break,” coach Scott Skiles said. “And we lost some balls, missed a couple layups. And in the games that we played them, they’re converting those at a really high rate. So we just couldn’t afford that happening with the way we were guarding as well with both things happening at once and they got a lead, and we were playing uphill the rest of the night.”
The deficit early on forced the Magic to play perfectly. And it was not like Orlando never had a push. The Magic scored 32 points in the second quarter and then 29 in the fourth. They shot 51.4 percent for the game, forced 15 turnovers on the Wizards for 19 points and got to the foul line for 24 free throw attempts — making more free throws than the Wizards attempted in the game.
Orlando had to be perfect though to get out of the deficit. And every time the team seemed poised to build momentum, a small mistake or a missed rotation or a failed stop would come up to rip it away.
There was the time two Magic players tipped the ball to each other going up for a rebound and it went out of bounds. Or the time the Magic fought for the ball and a Wizards player snuck in to tip it in his own basket. There was the inbounds turnover with John Wall sneaking in to steal a pass and give the Wizards an extra possession.
These small moments cost the team opportunities to climb back into the game.
“We’ve got to control what we can control, and that’s the defensive end,” Tobias Harris said. “They had some good energy once they started making shots. We were turning the basketball over, we couldn’t really get easy looks. From then on, it was an uphill battle and it was tough to get back to it.”
“We’ve got to control what we can control, and that’s the defensive end.” — Tobias Harris
Certainly Orlando’s own defense did too, failing to continue the upward progression it had shown in the last two games. Washington shot 55.3 percent from the floor and made 13 of 23 3-pointers. There was a stretch where the Magic just lost players in rotation and gave up open 3-pointers.
Then again, John Wall puts that kind of pressure and stress on any defense with his ability to get into the lane with tons of freedom. The Magic again struggled to corral him.
There were moments where the Magic had a chance. Wall had seven of Washington’s 15 turnovers. Orlando did get its offense going. The Magic just could not string together enough stops to compete.
“They just set the tone from the beginning,” said Nikola Vucevic, who scored 23 points to go with nine rebounds and five assists. “We never responded. They built the lead early on. It was tough to play then. Myself, I can’t go through the first half like I did, sleepwalking pretty much. I needed to do a better job in the first half, trying to help the team wake up and do something.”
It felt that was what the Magic were looking for the entire night. Something to wake up their aggression. The team just could not get itself going.
Not in any meaningful way. Not in a serious way.
The Wizards had control over the Magic, just as they have the past three years. Orlando is still winless against this team in 12 tries now. And now losers of five of its past six.
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“The way we’ve been playing lately, we have to wake up and make a stand and get on a winning streak,” Vucevic said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be tough for us to achieve our goals and make the Playoffs. We still have a winning record, but the way we’re playing is not good right now. We have to find a way to get back to what we were doing when we were playing really well. I know we can do it, we just have to find it within each other.”