The Orlando Magic have put in some impressive performances despite their 3-5 record. They have taken step forwards. But moral victories no longer matter.
It was awfully tempting to say after the Magic lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second game of the season, to pat them on the back and give all the credit to the brilliance of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
It was awfully tempting after the Magic reached overtime against the Rockets on the road to cede the victory and say the Magic nearly beat a Western Conference finalist on the road.
That might have been the response the last two or three years. Scott Skiles — and by extension the players — have made it clear that is not the expectation or something they can accept today.
Moral victory has become a very dirty word around Magic camp.
“We’ve got to get to a position where it doesn’t become, ‘Hey, we did a lot of good things and took a step forward,’ to where we are generally angry about it and then take some action,” Skiles said. “Do something about it. Be a little more in tune late in games, be in your spot, set your screens. Do your job and the things you are supposed to do.”
That standard can be jarring for a team that won just 63 games the past three years. A little bit more is expected.
But that is also a natural progression. The team has to take that step forward and step up to win games. Actual games, not moral victories or “progress wins.” Those are no longer acceptable.
Just as the team no longer can accept the late game gaffes and collapses that have characterized it and robbed wins, the team is no longer accepting the fight. They have to win the fight now, more than ever.
Doing that, as David Ramil of Hardwood Paroxysm wrote after the Thunder game, would kill the Magic’s growth plan for this season:
"It’s a difficult position for the team and their coach to be in. While he’s coaching them to continue improving as the season progresses, the players’ youth and inexperience must be balanced immediately by proof that they’re capable of winning games. A win against a legitimate title contender like the Thunder could have gone a long way toward building that confidence.. . .The game might very well be a microcosm of Orlando’s season, promising at first then reverting to more established (and less productive) patterns that ultimately lead to infrequent wins.They’ll need to start winning soon before the pattern becomes impossible to shake off or else moral victories, and not the kind that actually matter, may very well be all they have left."
Scott Skiles is not someone to mince words. He has not held back that losing is not OK. Even when the team plays well, he has noted the things they still need to improve upon.
Even in something as meaningless as a preseason game — the first preseason game at that — Skiles sent a message to his team by benching all the starters when they did not play with energy. He did it again against the Raptors in a regular season game.
“There is nothing profound to say,” Skiles said after the loss to the Thunder. “Players have to make plays. When the game is on the line, somebody has got to make a big shot, somebody has got to get a rebound. We need a stop.
“There comes a time in these games when players have to make plays. What happens is players will start making plays, we’ll win close games, the monkey will be off our back and it will just continue.”
Ultimately this is all about that accountability piece discussed in the first part of this series. The Magic are holding themselves up to a new standard. And wins matter in that standard.
Really nothing else matters in that framework.
So it certainly was nice early in this season the Magic have hung tough with Oklahoma City, Washington, Houston and Chicago. Skiles though is more worried about the inconsistency that crept in against Philadelphia and Indiana.
He cares less about the problems that may be hid by competing with the really good teams and more about the problems and habits established against teams the Magic should and do beat and the teams they should compete in.
The Pacers game was almost certainly one of the more frustrating and poorly played games of the season — the Magic’s loss to the Bulls would be the other.
The fact every game so far this season has been close has been irrelevant to Skiles no matter the opponent.
The expectation is not to make general progress. The expectation has not been to hang around with these great teams.
The expectation now is to take care of business and do it the right way — at least, within the Magic’s principles and system. The expectation now is to win games.
The team can play poorly in wins and still find a way to succeed. The team can no longer play well in a loss. It still counts as a loss, no matter what positive you can find from it.
That mindset is deeply ingrained in Skiles and is slowly making its way to the team.