Orlando Magic not working together, and the results speak for themselves

The Orlando Magic are sliding and there seems to be no end in sight. Another disappointing effort shows a team struggling to come together and fix things.

Elfrid Payton was trying. Give him credit for that.

He was playing the game how he always does, trying to drive into the lane and look for passes to make, twisting the defense into a knot and finding the release valve to get open shots. The fact his teammates fumbled the ball away or just stood there and watched early on as he tried to make anything happen was a dastardly sign of things to come.

Payton had his share of turnovers — four of the six the Orlando Magic committed in the first quarter. But at least he was forcing the issue, trying to create for others. It seemed to be the exception rather than the rule in the Magic’s 98-81 loss to the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena on Monday.

The other players?

The Magic keep finding new lows and new questions that need answering as their slide continues with more disturbing and frustrating defeats. The Magic have now lost seven of their past eight games, falling out of the Playoff positioning and falling behind in the crowded Eastern Conference.

The Hawks attacked early and often, getting into the heart of the Magic defense time and time again, making that simple pass when the defense stepped up — if it did. It got to the point Nikola Vucevic was hovering between attacking the ball handler and staying on his man and not making either decision.

That moment says a lot about where this team is defensively. And it mirrors what is going on the offensive end.

As the Magic were trying desperately to keep the momentum from their run that cut the lead to six points, Elfrid Payton drove into the lane and was cut off, he dished it out to outlet to Tobias Harris. Instead of continuing to move, he held the ball, dribbled backward and reset the play, opting for a pick and roll isolation.

Harris tried to break down Paul Millsap and ended up losing the ball and taking a rushed mid-range jumper. This was a common occurrence throughout the game as the Magic’s offense was numbingly stagnant and terrible for most of the game.

Orlando’s offensive rating of 82.8 points per 100 possessions in Monday’s game shows an offense that was simply not putting the ball in the basket. The aesthetics of the offense were just as ugly as the team stood around.

Scott Skiles noted after the game the ball would stop on the catch rather than keep moving. The Magic offense is at its best when a player catches the ball and immediately attacks.

To make matters worse, players would stop after dishing the ball, creating imbalanced floors and crowding players as they prepared to drive. It was a team completely out of sync.

And again, that lack of cohesion remained on defense.

Again, the defense was not helping the helper on the second level, leaving Vucevic on that indecision island. Not to mention they were not doing much at the point of attack or on screens to keep dribble penetration from cutting through the defense.

The Hawks finished with 48 points in the paint. It was a constant parade for them into the paint and past the Magic’s first line of defense.

Orlando had some small stretches where they strung together stops, just like against Toronto in its last game. The ability and the will is there. For some reason though it dissipates and goes away. The frustration grows and overtakes the young Magic team.

These are not new issues.

Anyone who has been watching this team knows the defense has slowly disappeared — since Christmas, the Magic have the ninth worst defensive rating in the league, giving up 106.3 points per 100 possessions.

The offense too has vanished. Orlando has not scored 100 or more points in regulation since the Dec. 30 win against Brooklyn. In January the team has a 93.6 offensive rating, the worst in the NBA.

The problems seem to multiply with every game.

Related Story: Dysfunction name of the game as Atlanta Hawks throttle Orlando Magic

There are enough flashes and enough history in this season that show the magic can play at a higher level. The scheme is all in place. It just takes execution.

And for whatever reason right now, the Magic do not have each other’s back the way they did in the beginning of the season and the way the scheme calls for. It is a simple issue of execution and want right now.

The players have talked about fixing things for a while now. These problems are not new.

To prevent results like Monday, end this slide and get back into the Playoff hunt, the Magic will have to right the ship. And it will take more than talk. An they will have to find a way to do it together.