Orlando Magic need ‘togetherness’ culture to save season

The Orlando Magic knew it would take some time to build chemistry. But if their culture is togetherness, they will need each other to achieve their goals.

The Orlando Magic are reeling as they enter this second game of their road trip and the midpoint of the season. Everything they believed about this team continues to be elusive, inconsistency reigns and the Playoff goals are sitting on the edge.

January indeed is proving to be a turning point for the Magic yet again. A loss in Sunday’s game to the Los Angeles Lakers has only seemed to heighten the alarm about the Magic’s season. The Lakers were the only team on this road trip with a record worse than the Magic. It seemed on paper the perfect opportunity to get things going back on the right foot.

Knowing the Magic, they always seem poised to let down — and then surprise the next opportunity that comes around, like Wednesday against the L.A. Clippers. That is the definition of inconsistency.

But even lately that seems to be coming apart.

After playing December at .500, the Magic have dropped four of the first five games in January. The team is on a three-game losing streak while on the road. And the Eastern Conference Playoff picture is beginning to crystallize.

And the Magic are increasingly falling behind — now four games out and at the most games under .500 for the season.

If there was ever a time for the Magic to commit to their chosen identity or form a new one, it would have to be now. Or else time may run out.

The Magic will need some soul searching and commitment to do so. They will have to get to the core of who they are — or, at least, who they are supposed to be.

That means players will have to commit to the defensive gameplan and strategy. It also means more from the coaches as coach Frank Vogel said last week when discussing the team’s issues.

“It’s on all of us,” Vogel said. “We are a togetherness culture. I don’t preach togetherness among the 15 guys in uniform. I preach togetherness organization-wide. The front office has a job. The coaching staff has a job. When one area is not getting it done well enough, it’s on all of us. It’s not on them. It’s not on me. It’s on all of us. We all assume a responsibility for it.”

Certainly, everyone is feeling the pressure of that responsibility right now. As much as the Magic need to get things on the floor, Vogel is also calling himself out some for failing to adjust or motivate the team properly. And, perhaps, he is hinting at the work the Magic are doing behind the scenes ahead of the trade deadline.

The very basics of what Vogel is trying to build as his culture for the Magic is that feeling of togetherness. Everyone benefits with the help of everyone else.

It is essential to his offensive philosophy and his demand for the team to “trust the pass.” He criticized the team in the third quarter Sunday for relying too much on isolation and not keeping the ball moving as the team had in the first half of that game. A nine-point quarter was the result.

It is essential to his defensive philosophy, where post players funnel players and slow them down to allow guards to catch up, using verticality to repel attacks at the rim. It takes a tremendous amount of trust to be good on the defensive end.

That is something the Magic have missed throughout this season. It is clear there is not a huge level of trust. When things go wrong for the Magic, they tend to try to do too much on their own. Their rotations are slow and they are not helping the helper, a key to any strong defense.

The basis of many of the Magic’s problems come back to that part — trusting each other and being in the right spot for each other. Playing good defense takes sacrifice and commitment to each other.

As many players admitted early in the season, there would be a growing process. The team would need some time to come together. Even Vogel said it might take half the season for it to happen. But that excuse certainly runs out at a certain point.

Now the Magic are at that midpoint to the season, it does not seem to be coming together. The Magic are not always on the same page. And that has led them where they are now.

If the Magic are going to save their season and make a Playoff push, they have to remember this message: They have to do it together.

If this is what Vogel ultimately wants Orlando’s culture to be throughout his time as head coach, the team needs to come together and play as a unit. They need to gain that trust that has seemingly been missing to this point.

Doing that will not be easy, of course. Something has to change, but the message must remain consistent.

“I think it’s a matter of staying the course with your message and try to preach doing things that we know wins games,” Vogel said last week. “The optimistic viewpoint on the win-one, lose-one thing for our team is that when we lose one, we come back and we win one. We responded to losses and disappointing performances in a good way.”

Orlando has shown its resiliency this season before. The team can snap that focus to attention on occasion. Consistency remains the issue.

No one player on this team is going to be able to save the season. Really, no one move in the front office could either.

Next: Four things we have learned about the Orlando Magic so far

For the Magic, that means they will have to band together and trust each other better, getting on the same page, to achieve their goals. Otherwise, the season could quickly become lost.