Orlando Magic let bad habits build as Cleveland Cavaliers storm through

The Orlando Magic have been letting their top-ranked defense slip some of late and it came to a head as the Cleveland Cavaliers blew them out at home.

Even the simple plays seemed hard for the Orlando Magic on Friday night.

Even a basic pass around the wing or drive or pick and roll seemingly became an adventure. The Cleveland Cavaliers were able to shoot passing lanes and get out in transition or force the Magic into an offense that did not accomplish much.

From the first play, it seemed the Magic were out of sync and out of the game.

“We definitely need better defense,” Tobias Harris said. “Any time you lose like we did today, obviously we weren’t playing too much defense out there.”

Orlando’s own lethargic play had a role too in spelling the Magic’s doom. But once again, for it seemed like the third or fourth straight game, the defense allowed penetration and allowed the other team to dictate the game’s tempo.

So as Cleveland had runs of 7-0 to start the game, 12-1 toward the end of the first half for the first 20-point lead of the game or the 10-4 run that finally broke the Magic and had Scott Skiles making yet another line change in search of any energy four minutes into the third quarter, the Magic had no answers. They could not reach into the reserves and rescue the game as they had done in Phoenix and Denver.

Instead, this was the team that resembled the third quarter against Phoenix on defense or the entire offensive game against Denver or the final moments against the Los Angeles Clippers. This was a team that is facing some slippage from a defense still ranked ninth in the league in defensive rating.

“Their very first play, we had a busted defensive coverage,” coach Scott Skiles said. We could tell right away we were a bit out of it mentally. This was our fourth game in a row where we have not been real sharp, our focus wasn’t real sharp. We were able to win one of the games more because Denver played worse than we did not because we played particularly well. That’s a great team. They were ready and they basically just toyed with us.

The Magic gave up all those runs — plus another 10 points when Skiles subbed out his entire starting lineup in the third quarter, trying to find any semblance of energy off the bench — because they were not in the right defensive position or not able to stay in front of their man. They fell behind because the offense was not sharp and careless turnovers ruled the day.

The Cavaliers certainly took it to the Magic. They were the more aggressive, more talented, more locked in team. A loss on this night while not acceptable certainly would have been understandable with the travel they had just completed and the one-day break in between.

But the Magic also did not deserve such an optimistic outlook. This is not who they are in any sense. This was the team like the last few years who lacked identity and lacked a system and belief in that system to get them back into the game.

The Magic came home a bit peeved they were not 5-0 on the road trip or at least 4-1. In both the loss to the Clippers and the Suns, the Magic had chances to win (even blowing a double-digit lead in Los Angeles).

“I see that,” Tobias Harris said after shootaround on Friday on the team’s frustration it did not finish a perfect road trip. “Having said that, there needs to be action to it and it has to be in the way we play today and the way we play going forward. If we would have been 5-0 on the road trip, we have to set our hopes high and especially here on our home court.”

The Magic certainly failed on that first test and all the players seemed at a loss for why things fell apart and fell apart so quickly.

The reason the Magic lost two of the last three games — and now three of the last four — could be traced to the same thing. A lack of consistency on the defensive end for the entire 48 minutes.

In the last five games they have gone from a defensive rating of 95.4 against the Utah Jazz to 106.2 against the Los Angeles Clippers to 72.7 against the Denver Nuggets to 108.2 against the Phoenix Suns. And finally to 118.2 against the Cavaliers on Friday.

“We’ve just got to put more focus on the defensive end as players,” Nikola Vucevic said. “Make sure that we do what we do. That’s the way we were winning games. When we had the good stretch at home and we were winning by a solid margin it was because we were defending and playing hard on that end. The sooner we understand we have to get back to that, the better we will be.”

A slowdown in the schedule, a chance to be at home for a few days may help. No one wanted to use the travel as an excuse for the team’s lack of energy against the Cavaliers.

There was no denying many of these themes were persistent from previous games. Considering all the Magic had built on the defensive end before, it was disappointing.

The Cavaliers shot 56.9 percent from the floor and 11 for 21 from beyond the arc. They turned 20 Magic turnovers into 31 points. They scored 50 points in the paint on 25-for-36 shooting.

LeBron James scored 25 points and waltzed into the lane with nine of his 10 makes and 11 of his 15 field goal attempts occurring right at the rim. Many of James’ eight assists led to 3-pointers.

It was an offensive clinic for the Cavaliers throughout the game with the Magic offering little resistance. This is not who this team is or wants to be.

Perhaps it was the summation of several lackluster efforts finally coming to roost. A painful and important lesson for a team still learning to win and experiencing a small measure of success for the first time.

“I have no idea what was the issue,” Nikola Vucevic said. “I just know that we can’t play like this anymore. It was pretty much embarrassing to lose like this.”

Next: Few bright spots for Orlando Magic in blowout loss to Cleveland Cavaliers

One thing is certain, this kind of play and this slippage will not continue. Scott Skiles said he would consider lineup changes if things do not turn around. A sign the team is still trying to get a grip on itself and its identity on both ends of the floor.