Frank Vogel: Orlando Magic not a good team right now
The Orlando Magic had everything set up for them to get a good win over a struggling, shorthanded Philadelphia 76ers. By their own doing, they struggled.
38. 112. 93. Final. 111
There was a bit of exasperation in the final seconds of the Orlando Magic’s 112-111 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Exasperation and shell shock.
The Magic got not one, but two stops in the dying seconds from Nikola Vucevic. And it was not enough. The fates seemed aligned to keep the Magic from winning.
After struggling to corral and stop Dario Saric and his cutting and driving through the stretch run, Nikola Vucevic finally tracked Saric through the lane and forced him to pass to empty space. Vucevic deflected away what would have likely been a pass that would go out of bounds.
On the ensuing inbounds, the 76ers worked the ball to the corner for Ersan Ilyasova where Vucevic was there to block the shot. The chaos that ensued only heightened the frustration.
The ball knocked off the side of the backboard after several deflections. The referees blew the play dead and a jump ball, unable to determine who knocked it out of bounds. the officials in Secaucus, N.J., could not determine either.
Ilyasova won the jump ball — perhaps holding Evan Fournier down by his shoulder — and T.J. McConnell tracked it down for the game-winning floater.
The Magic were clearly staggered. Their 15-point first-quarter lead was long gone. All the things that had worked were gone. They fought back to take the lead again, going up by seven points on a 7-0 run midway through the fourth quarter after
They fought back to take the lead again, going up by seven points on a 7-0 run midway through the fourth quarter after Serge Ibaka and Nerlens Noel got into a physical altercation. It was the kind of moment that usually finds a way to wake a team up.
None of this mattered. Faced with five seconds to go and no timeouts, the Magic needed to act to salvage this game.
Orlando Magic
They could not even do that. All the bad plays, rushed shots, poor execution and inconsistent defense came together to give the Magic a discouraging and frustrating defeat at home.
The Magic inbounded to Fournier, he was immediately surrounded by three players and he tried to fling the ball forward to someone who was open. There was no someone and the 76ers survived.
The Magic were defeated. More than defeated, they were frustrated beyond belief and disappointed in themselves. For all the talk still about putting together a run and making the Playoffs, the Magic cannot put that talk to action.
That inaction came in disappointing fashion Thursday night.
“I think we played like we’re some kind of 60-win team playing against a bad team,” coach Frank Vogel said. “I don’t know how our team can disrespect an opponent. That’s what it looked like in the first half.
“We’re not a very good team right now.”
That is the truth of the matter. No one would ever confuse the Magic for that kind of team. They continue to make mistakes only young teams should make.
The patented inbound turnover, the lost lead, the impossible lead lost (98.1 percent chance to win with a six-point lead and about two minutes to play) and even getting the stops they needed and it not being enough.
This loss feels familiar from the last four years, despite it being a new team and more than halfway through the season.
“It’s a bad loss,” Fournier said. “There’s not another way to say it. We really should have won by 15 or 20. We just kept letting them come back into the game.”
Fournier put the loss on himself. He committed six turnovers despite his near triple-double game. He certainly made some mistakes throughout the game.
But it was truly a team collapse. Orlando became stagnant in the second quarter after taking their 21-6 lead. They committed silly mistakes that cost games. Things that cannot happen if the team truly has Playoff aspirations.
The fact that losses like this seem to repeat — recently the Magic gave up a sizable lead thanks to poor execution against the Minnesota Timberwolvess and nearly squandered a win in Toronto against the Toronto Raptors — makes it all the more discouraging.
When the Magic need a big response, they cannot seem to find it. And when that punch comes from any team, they struggle to get their footing back.
“I think a lot of times what happens to us is we build a lead and we go away from what is working for us,” Vucevic said. “At one point we had a seven- or eight-point lead and we took bad shots. It comes back to get you. It’s a thing that’s on us. Give them credit, they really fought to the end. We had every chance to close out a game. We just didn’t do what we needed to do.”
These are characteristics that fit the statistics for the Magic. This is not a good team. This is a team struggling to get a win. This is a team talking about the Playoffs without any real evidence to suggest that run is on its way.
This is a team that is 28th in offensive efficiency and 22nd in defensive efficiency. This is a team that has not won consecutive games since the end of December.
Vogel’s diagnosis is right if a bit short of where this team actually is. The Magic are not a good team. In reality, they have not been a good team since December when the defense bottomed out and began its descent from top-10 in the league to near the bottom.
The Magic showed flashes of that defensive brilliance and ball movement that makes them dangerous Thursday. This team has potential to put a good game together or to play at a high level. But never long enough.
Never for 48 minutes. And not for consecutive games.
“Every winning team has to be able to handle runs,” Vogel said. “We’ve done it at times and we haven’t done it at times. And we didn’t do well enough tonight.”
But, like everything else, it is all talk. It is the right thing to say to the media. And none of it means anything without action. The Magic have been unable to take that next step and do what they know they have to do on the court.
Next: Grades: Philadelphia 76ers 112, Orlando Magic 111
This is a results-based business. And Vogel is right. . . the Magic are bad.