Frustration boils over, but Orlando Magic must look at themselves

Frustration boiled over as the Orlando Magic fell to the Atlanta Hawks. To fix things and straighten out the season, they must look at themselves.

Elfrid Payton was fighting to create some energy for the Orlando Magic. His team had fallen behind by 12 points and given up a 7-0 run as the game was slowly slipping away in the middle of the fourth quarter.

This is when a team either comes together and gives themselves a fighting chance or a team unravels. The Magic were trying to fight, but could not muster enough energy to get back. And they unraveled as frustration over their poor play mounted.

Evan Fournier took a 3-pointer and Elfrid Payton came flying into the lane to grab the rebound. He came down with it and got tied up with Paul Millsap. An already frustrated Magic team seemed to boil over, feeling the Magic had earned a foul call.

Serge Ibaka wrestled the ball free and slammed into the ground. That was his first technical foul. Millsap would win the tip and the Atlanta Hawks would go on to win 111-92.

Serge Ibaka would pick up a second technical foul for good measure late in the game and Frank Vogel had his moments where he was steaming at the refs as the team collapsed in the fourth quarter, letting a close game get away from them, and struggled throughout to keep pace with Atlanta.

Yes, it was a four-point game in the fourth quarter, but it never really felt that close.

The Hawks had control of the game seemingly from the start. Orlando could not break through the defense consistently nor could the team get stops consistently. The energy that characterized Monday’s win over the New York Knicks was seemingly gone. So too was what little precision the team had.

Orlando is 9-10 since Dec. 1. This is essentially a .500 team. It is also a team with one winning streak in that time. The Magic have literally exchanged wins and losses for the last month of the season.

That simply is not good enough. And the frustrations of that inconsistency continue to boil over as the team can never find its footing.

“We’ve got to believe we’re good enough,” Vogel said. “Maybe we’re not. Maybe we’re a win-one, lose-one team. I don’t believe we are. I believe we are good enough. But our guys have to believe that.”

The Magic’s supposed defensive identity is thrown out the window. In Wednesday’s loss, Vogel said the Hawks were simply too comfortable. The team’s pressure and disposition defensively were lacking. That has been the case for much of the last month.

And once a team like Atlanta finds a rhythm, it is a team that can score points in a hurry. Orlando never really made anything hard for the team.

The sometimes questionable officiating only served as a scapegoat for the Magic’s real problem.

Vogel said after the game he would send some tape to the league office and ask for an explanation. It did have a momentum effect on the game.

But good teams find a way to fight through that. The Magic have struggled at times to fight through those moments and their own inconsistency. And the easy explanation only made the problems worse.

That does not explain or excuse the Magic’s seeming lack of energy. Much less their inability to consistently play with energy and urgency every game.

“Really just our energy, that’s what needs to be consistent,” Aaron Gordon said. “At least for myself. If you come out with energy, it’s contagious. I know if I come out with urgency, I know the rest of my team will as well. I take a lot of this as not coming out as energy.”

Aaron Gordon did his part, scoring 10 of his 15 points in the first quarter. He appears to be looking more and more comfortable in his role. His energy is usually fairly constant, even if his efficiency is not. That will quickly make him one of the Magic’s more reliable players.

The Magic have not found that energy external.

There are these external factors. The Magic’s opponents are good defensively and figuring things out offensively. But these external factors do not matter in the long run and over the course of several games.

Orlando’s inconsistency comes down to the team itself and no one else. The Magic have to look hard at themselves and what they want for this season if they want to fix things.

“It’s very frustrating because we come into every game talking about trying to be consistent,” Elfrid Payton said. “It’s definitely frustrating. I feel like the energy was there. We just didn’t get into the ball like we should. I thought we were a step slow on rotations. We were just a little late.”

Everyone seems able to diagnose the problem for the Magic. Or at least dance around it.

This team just does not look the same every time out. And a team can only talk about consistency for so long before that inconsistency becomes their identity. Orlando has given up 100 points or more in 15 of the past 16 games. It is hard to say a team is good at defense with those kinds of numbers — the Magic are 28th in the league in defensive rating in that same timeframe.

Orlando has given up 100 points or more in 15 of the past 16 games. It is hard to say a team is good at defense with those kinds of numbers — the Magic are 28th in the league in defensive rating in that same timeframe. That is nearly the only thing that has been consistent of late. That is not anything the team wants.

At a certain point, the responsibility and the onus for change fall to the players themselves. They can say all the right things, but doing them is another matter. A matter, of course, the team also struggled with last January when they fell out of the Playoff race.

This is not a question of effort, it is a question of will.

Orlando played plenty hard against Atlanta on Wednesday. What the team lacked was precision, will and urgency. Things all good teams need at certain points in the season to fight back and prevent blowout losses. It is what they need to give themselves a chance.

There was plenty for the Magic to be frustrated over in the game against the Hawks.

But their problems started all with them. It started with their struggles to set a strong tone defensively and provide a consistent impediment on that end. Those struggles only deepened Orlando’s own offensive problems. And then it seemed like one thing could throw the Magic off their game.

The Magic can still accomplish all their goals. But Vogel is ultimately right. For the Magic to do so, they must believe they can do so.

Next: Grades: Atlanta Hawks 111, Orlando Magic 92

More importantly, they must play like it too.