Orlando Magic’s struggles a matter of trust

Aaron Gordon has spoken about how the team seems to be lacking trust in each other. Trust will be the key to everyone on the Orlando Magic righting things.

Aaron Gordon has stood in his locker or against the wall at Amway Center facing the media and warned the team cannot fracture. In these tough times, the team cannot splinter apart. They have to continue working together and trusting each other.

Only then would the team pull through.

“I think we’re just — it’s a common theme and I have said it a lot of time — I just don’t believe we are trusting each other as well as we need to be,” Gordon said after the Magic’s loss to the Hornets on Friday. “I don’t know if it’s deliberately or not. We have to get back to passing to the right man, regardless of it’s the right play, it’s the right play.”

The team has started to look a bit better. Like there is light at the end of the tunnel. The ball gets moving, the team begins attacking quickly and shots go in. The offense has awoken from its slumber and the defense gives it enough space to take leads again.

Then the tightness kicks in. Then it all begins to overwhelm the Magic and overcome them. Then the lead tightens and passes stop becoming sharp. Defensive rotations get missed. Players duck their head and try to do it on their own.

The Magic try to find a way to dig themselves out completely on their own rather than together. And Scott Skiles is forced to search.

Orlando has lost its last three games all in the final moments. The Magic lost an 18-point lead in the second half and struggled down the stretch. They came back and lost a four-point lead, struggling again to execute efficiently and falling in overtime.

Another opportunity missed.

Then there was Tuesday in Milwaukee. Orlando lost a big lead again. The Magic were involved in a back-and-forth affair. They failed again.

Losing is failure at this point in the rebuild. There are no positives to take without the accompanying victory. The Magic may be playing their best basketball of the month, but it is clearly not enough.

And the team is searching. Searching themselves. Searching each other.

The coach is searching. Searching for the right combinations. For anything.

At times Wednesday, Skiles was playing mad scientist. His finishing lineup included Shabazz Napier, Evan Fournier, Mario Hezonja, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic. He was searching for anything to help him at this point and this lineup seemed to have things going.

In the game’s closing moments though, he pulled Hezonja for Victor Oladipo. That did not help. The other lineup may not help. The levers are not doing much or affecting much.

He is just searching.

There is always the argument rotations create consistency. The common complaint about Skiles, especially early in the season, was that he was mixing and matching too much. His finishers by committee was going too much on feel and not enough on what will consistently help the team win.

At that point Skiles was still figuring his team out. Eventually he built trust and found a lineup that worked. And then it did not work again.

And now he is searching again. Making costly mistakes along the way — should Hezonja have gone out Wednesday after scoring 11 points in his 17 minutes and should Aaron Gordon have been sitting on the bench Monday when the team was in desperate need of a rebound and some size to defend Jeff Green? — that are costing the team wins (maybe).

Behind the questions about lineup changes is that issue Gordon spoke about last week: Trust.

Related Story: Orlando Magic shooters go cold in Milwaukee

Who can teammates trust to do their job? Who can the coaches trust to do their job consistently and at a high level?

In these hard times, there has been a lot of players going at it alone in critical moments. There have been the ball getting stuck. Or, like Wednesday night, Nikola Vucevic taking a contested jumper with 50 seconds left in a one-point game.

Skiles changing his lineup so much or sticking with a lineup too long — Skiles admits, he tends to err on the side of sticking with what has worked, even if it goes a bit too long — is more a matter of who he trusts.

Why is Mario Hezonja not playing more minutes? Hezonja has not earned that trust on the defensive end. Perhaps he made small strides to earn that with his play Tuesday in Milwaukee.

Why is Aaron Gordon’s minutes inconsistent? His overhelping on defense leaves him out of position despite his strong on-ball defense. He tends to drive into traffic on occasion, leading to turnovers. His improved play this month and his production have gained some more trust and, thus, more minutes.

Why is Elfrid Payton now seemingly in the doghouse? He no longer can stop opposing point guards from driving into the lane at will. It is hard to have him out there for long if he cannot win his one-on-one match with any regularity.

Trust is powerful. It is everything in this game.

On the court, the Magic have lost some trust in each other. Nikola Vucevic is not the greatest defensive player in the world, but he gets even worse when he cannot decide whether to step up to stop the dribble penetration, helping his teammate, or stick to his man, knowing no one will come in and cover him.

Examples of play like this are all over the floor right now. It is not the players do not understand the principles of their offense or defense. It is not the players not liking each other or having good chemistry.

Really, the Magic’s problem is the same problem they have always had this season. Their lack of consistency means results are varied.

The coach cannot know game to game what he can rely on to set his rotation. The players cannot rely on what each other will do, leaving them out in deadly islands and forcing them in some ways to shirk their responsibilities in indecision.

Everything is out of whack for the Magic. It is displayed in the way they are playing so inconsistently. And Skiles is not immune. He too has succumbed to the inconsistency within this team.

The funny thing about trust is the only to build trust is to earn it. To build that trust again it takes a little trust. It takes a commitment to what has worked and an understanding of what will come.

Maybe that means Skiles extends some more belief into Hezonja or Gordon, two youngsters full of inconsistency so far this season. Maybe that means Vucevic fulfills his responsibility with the belief the players will file behind him.

It is all uncertain though. Trust has to be rewarded too.

Next: Repeated mistakes and lessons unlearned in loss to Memphis Grizzlies

And right now the Magic seem to have very little of it.