The Orlando Magic are both good and bad

The Orlando Magic have struggled to build consistency this season, proving themselves to be both the strong team that can beat anybody and the bad one.

Last Sunday in Detroit, the Orlando Magic were swarming.

The team corralled and harassed ball handlers, forced difficult mid-range jumpers, closed out 3-point shooters and swatted shots at the rim. This was their identity. They held a good Detroit Pistons team that had just come home from a three-game road trip averaging more than 110 points per game to just 92 points and a lowly 97.1 offensive rating.

This was the culmination of a stellar week on the road for the Magic — a road trip that ended 4-1 and could have easily been 5-0. It appeared the Magic had found themselves and were readying for a serious playoff push.

This was a good team. A team that engendered hope that they could make good on their Playoff dreams and erase four years of frustration and bad memories.

Amazing what a week can do to flip the narrative and feeling?

The Magic have swung from world beaters to getting eaten in the course of a week. And the reality is they are both of these teams.

It was not the fact they went 1-3 in that last stretch that set off some alarm bells. It was the way they lost those games — giving up more than 100 points and struggling on the defensive end. That identity built up in the last month that provided some hope the team could turn the corner seemed to evaporate.

Blame fatigue or the rough schedule or the quality of the opponent, the Magic turned back into the pumpkin they were at the beginning of the season. Orlando has given up 100 or more points in four straight games for the first time since the first four games of the season. This, after giving up 100 points just three times in the last three weeks.

And even more than just the points they have given up the last four games, it is the way they have. They have given up dribble penetration with ease, been a step slow on rotations and given up offensive rebounds. The Magic have gotten beaten physically and gotten blown out — at least on two occasions.

It looked more like the team’s opening lethargic play to start the season. A team that still had no clue how to play together and had not learned the defensive principles.

The Magic surely have not reverted back to that basic level again. Orlando was connected somewhat defensively, the team just was not able to make the plays defensively for whatever reason.

Still, the results were not encouraging and a bit disheartening after such a stellar road trip.

As with all things in the NBA season, no one can get too high or too low. There are inevitable ups and downs in an 82-game season.

But the swings the Magic have seen this season are already pretty severe. It leaves everyone wondering who this team is on a week-to-week and even game-to-game basis.

That does not sound like a Playoff team at all. The Magic’s biggest struggle is with consistency. The team has not been able to play at a high level for long stretches. Finding that consistency will be the task for the rest of the season.

The reality is the Magic are capable of being both the world beaters who topped the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center and the lowly team that got gutted at home by the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets. They have the capability of beating anyone and the capability of getting beat by anyone. On any given night.

They have shown they can be both these teams.

The Magic certainly still have hope. It is too early to look at the standings, but the Magic are still firmly in the Playoff race. They are not at a point where they need to give up on their dreams.

And if the team plays like it did on the road trip, it can beat anyone and make a big Playoff push. Orlando has shown itself capable.

That should be reason enough to have some patience and push for consistency from this team.

But the team could easily fall apart, as it did last January in that devastating 2-12 month. Orlando seemingly has more talent and more of an identity than that team, but the record certainly has not shown it.

The Magic are still coming together in some ways. And they have not built up the consistency to provide much faith of anything. If the team plays more like it did this past week — slow and struggling to defend — then it could be yet another long season. And it seems that kind of play is always right around the corner.

As in all things, Orlando is probably actually somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. They are not the team that can blow out teams defensively every night and win running away with efficient offense. They are also not the struggling team that cannot stop anybody.

The Magic obviously need one of these identities to take over. For their success, they know it has to be the strong defensive one. Actually performing that has been the difficulty in the first quarter of the season.

The fact the Magic have largely played well on the defensive end is more a sign this can be their identity. Then again, they have struggled to put all those pieces together for any length of time, failing to string together back-to-back good weeks.

Next: Is Bismack Biyombo underperforming

The good team is always present. But so is the bad team. And that is the definition of the Magic’s mediocrity so far this season.