Orlando Magic hoping to rediscover resiliency

The Orlando Magic were once a top-10 defense in the league, able to withstand punches from opponents. Now they are hoping to rediscover that culture within.

The Orlando Magic were punched in the gut about as hard as a team could right off the bat.

In the first two games of the season, the Magic blew a five-point lead with about a minute left on their own mistakes to lose to the Washington Wizards in the home opener and then lost a 20-point lead at home to the Oklahoma City Thunder before falling in double overtime.

All the signs of positive play were nothing because the team still could not get over the hump. The Magic started off in that 0-3 hole and had to find some resolve — and a lighter patch in the schedule — to work their way back out.

The Magic of previous years might have lost more games trying to figure themselves out and fallen deeper and deeper into that hole.

Instead the Magic got to building things up. They fought back against that pressure and began putting wins together in the way Scott Skiles teams of the past had done. Their defense led the way and the wins began to come.

When the Magic cracked the .500 mark, it felt like a small accomplishment. When they zoomed past it, competing for the Playoffs seemed a complete inevitability.

That has all changed as suddenly as it was built up. The slippage was occurring before hand, but was once a few warning signs has turned into an avalanche.

“It’s in us,” coach Scott Skiles said. “We’ve shown we can do it, we can be a tough team and weather a storm in a tough game. We’ve had lots of games where we’ve taken a step in the right direction. But it’s got to be consistent, it’s got to be for six months and we have definitely slipped there. We’ve got to try to get it back.”

The Magic were showing then they could be a tough, if imperfect team. They went into New Orleans and gutted out their first win. They out-defended a hot Raptors team at home. They lost a lead at Minnesota and stayed in it to eke out the victory.

That tough team is still in there. Somewhere.

Now, though, the team does not resemble that at all.

The Magic are back to .500, having lost seven of eight games in January and are playing like one of the worst teams in the NBA — they have the second lowest net rating of -12.8 points per 100 possessions and the worst offense in the league at 93.6 points per 100 possessions. This is a team in a bad, bad place.

Like when things are going well, it is hard to pinpoint exactly what is going right, it can be the same defensively. The Magic have long said many of the right things to the media and to each other, but have had trouble implementing it in games.

As much as things were going well in December, they have flipped in January. The numbers above show that, but it does not take much to see it either. The team is struggling to do those seemingly simple things.

“For us, it’s just getting back to a rhythm, getting some more confidence and going with it from there,” Tobias Harris said. “It’s easier said than done, but at the same time we have the group to do it. We just have to get our focus back.”

Harris said things can slide the other way too. There may be so much attention and focus on setting things right that players could possibly press some.

It is not like these issues are new too. While the Magic were winning, Skiles would enter his press conferences warning of defensive slippage. It is always about how the team is playing.

The results will take care of themselves if the team is playing well.

“We know it’s there,” Aaron Gordon said. “We know we have all the talent that we need. We just have to pick it up. We have to pick each other up and trusting each other offensively and defensively.”

The offensive and defensive schemes are heavily reliant on how the team is playing together. Thre is no one player on this Magic roster who can take over a game by himself. There is not any player who can consistently create offense by beating his man off the dribble.

What the team has noted more and more is a lack of precision in execution — such as screens not being set properly or a lack of second efforts on defense.

There has been a fair amount of indecision these days with the Magic. The ball is not moving as crisply, players are struggling to execute their assignments and responsibilities on defense. It is not hard to see the inconsistency.

Skiles has seen it all when it comes to teams and how they battle through the season. He has seen teams start off strong and falter like this year’s Magic appear to be doing and he has seen teams struggle and come on late.

There are cycles in the NBA. And if the Magic are really just a .500 team, they will have a lot of that inconsistency. Some of it is expected.

This is not a time for the Magic or for anyone to feel like the season is completely lost, although without change it could quickly spiral.

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It might be easy to suspect the team’s history the past three years could mean the team could slide off into the abyss. But the first half of this season suggests something else.

“I also have to have to have the belief and confidence that they can turn back around,” Skiles said. “I have seen enough from them to know they can. No game is easy, you can’t take any game for granted. From here until the end of March, our schedule is very difficult. We have to focus on how we’re playing on a given night.”

Despite all the struggles and gloom surrounding the Magic since the calendar turned, there is still the confidence this group can return to that play from earlier in the season. It is still in there after all.

The players know it is in there, and they know they have to change something. Nikola Vucevic said players are speaking up and saying the right things. It is just about doing it now.

This has been a common refrain for a while. Everybody wants to win.

Getting back to that level is the work. Work the team has done once and can do again.

Next: Orlando Magic not working together and results showing it

“The schemes are simple, but it’s hard to do it correctly all the time,” Skiles said. “We’ve had significant slippage on that end and we just have to get it back. We worked our way into a position where we were looking clearly like a top-10 defensive team.

“I don’t use that word ‘work’ lightly. The guys worked their way into that position by being really conscientious, having a good training camp, carrying it over into the regular season, weathering a couple of early tough losses. It looked like we were becoming really resilient and that we understood the importance on that end and then we lost it. There is nothing to do but work again and try to get it back.”