Frustration reigns in Orlando Magic loss to Philadelphia 76ers

The Orlando Magic knew they needed to come out strong on their home floor and pick up a win. Instead they frustratingly dropped the ball.

At a moment the Orlando Magic looked like they would be mustering up the energy and the hustle and precision and all those things they needed to get back into a game they had glided through listlessly most of the way, they let the floor drop off. A moment of pure frustration capped off with a simple lack of attention to detail.

The scouting report, Scott Skiles said, clearly told players to keep their heels above the 3-point line with Isaiah Canaan on the ball. Evan Fournier sagged off. Canaan rose and made a 3-pointer, sending a four-point deficit to seven and putting a stake in the Magic’s heart on a night where there did not seem to be a ton of heart.

Orlando started off as strong as any team could hope for. Then tripped hard on its face. And made mistake after clueless after frustrating after careless mistake. The ball stuck. Pressure got to them and disrupted their offense to the point of stagnation.

The Magic were feeling like they had hit rock bottom with their play through January. This might be it — or it might be the beginning if the team does not trust each other and execute better.

“It’s pretty much everything right now,” Tobias Harris said. “Our defense has been poor. Tonight it was poor. We couldn’t dig down and get stops as a unit. We couldn’t get consecutive stops and that’s what hurt us. We were able to score the ball in the fourth, but if we can’t get stops there is no way we can cut that lead down.”

After giving up a 13-1 run to end the first quarter, the Magic were climbing out of a steep hill because of their own failings and struggles. The 76ers are playing too well right now and made the Magic pay for their foolish mistakes, winning their first game against an Eastern Conference team this season with a 96-87 win at Amway Center on Wednesday.

Jahlil Okafor (PHI) — 20 pts.; Ish Smith (PHI) — 13 pts., 11 assts.
Elfrid Payton (ORL) — 21 pts., 10 assts.; Tobias Harris (ORL) — 15 pts.

The frustration was not born out of anything than the Magic’s own mistakes.

There was the missed play on the scouting report that gave Canaan the game-clinching seal. But there was also the inbounds pass deflected out of bounds and caught by Dewayne Dedmon, who inbounded the ball, for a turnover. There were the passes deflected and bobbled agains the 76ers pressure. There were passes telegraphed and plenty stolen or knocked off course enough to throw the Magic offense off.

Orlando was unable to execute, was getting into the offense late in the shot clock and was forced to dribble too much to create offense.

Elfrid Payton with 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting with 10 assists was about the only player able to get into the paint consistently and make the defense think and work. No one else seemed to come with him for much of the night.

And the frustration only grew, building upon itself leading to more mistakes in a devastating cycle for a team struggling. It became frustrating to go up against a set defense every time down the floor.

The team though was not recovering and not getting over the minor failures. They were compounding them. And that might be as alarming as any loss to the 76ers.

“We all come to work,” Scott Skiles said. “If that’s all we can must mentally, then it’s not going to look good for us the rest of the year. Our goal right now should be simply to win a game.”

Skiles said he did not see the level of competitiveness or fight he wanted to see from the team. The Magic came out of halftime down three points and gave up a 13-2 run to give the 76ers an 11-point lead. Maybe the harbinger for the struggles was a traveling on Nikola Vucevic on the very first possession of the half.

As that run was beginning to pick up steam, Skiles pulled his entire starting lineup for a bench lineup that did not gain much more traction. It was a search the entire night for some energy.

“We fought, we definitely fought tonight,” Aaron Gordon said. “We just couldn’t get stops. The fourth quarter with about nine minutes to go, that’s the urgency we need to play with all the time.

“I think it’s just an execution thing. It’s still trusting each other and really putting it all together and not letting our team fracture.”

The fight did come, just a bit too late. The Magic cut the lead down to four before a brief moment of lacking concentration cost the team dearly. The defensive energy stopped and the game was more or less closed.

Orlando entered the game knowing it needed a strong effort. The team recognized the slide had to stop. The players continued to say all the right things — even recognizing their own struggles to stick to it.

And the Magic came out with the right energy. The raced out to a 20-10 lead, moving the ball and largely getting stops. Any missed 3-pointers they got were at least open. It might have been a small source for the frustration to come.

It quickly dissipated though. The bench unit could not keep up the momentum and the hole kept on getting bigger, growing deeper every time the Magic tried to climb out.

This was a game Orlando could not give away. And with a road trip upcoming next week and an acknowledged difficult schedule upcoming in February and March.

“It’s real frustrating, especially a game like this that we need,” Harris said. “It’s hard to put a run together if we can’t get any stops consecutively. If you can’t do that, it’s tough. We weren’t able to do that and that was pretty much the name of the game tonight.”

Again, the team recognizes a problem. The frustrating part is the Magic do not seem to know how to fix it.

Next: Adjusting within system is Magic's next growth point

It might be the greatest frustration of them all.