The Orlando Magic took their first extended road trip and came home with only a single win. The trip revealed their flaws, but still some optimism.
The dust has settled from the shiny beginnings of the NBA season. Teams who got off to fast starts are beginning to settle into the teams they will be.
This was the inevitable fate of the Orlando Magic after they took the league by storm and raced out to a 6-2 start. Orlando has lost five of its past seven games. Reality has hit the team like a ton of bricks.
Four games ago, the Magic knew they would learn a lot about themselves on their West Coast road trip. This stretch of eight road games in 10 games was going to help set the team’s direction for the next phase of the season. After this stretch, everyone would know who the Magic are.
Typically the first West Coast trip provides a clue to what kind of season the team will have. It is the first bit of adversity the team has to face away from home. Always a challenge, the West Coast road trip or that first long road trip of the season tests the team.
It is not always instructive though.
The Magic went 4-1 on a five-game road trip in early December last year — the first big trip of the year. It showed the Magic as a tough defensive team. It was also the moment things began to collapse with the win over the Washington Wizards in an odd and successful offensive onslaught.
No, these trips tend to reveal the habits the Magic want to establish. On that road trip last year, Orlando seemed happy to rest on its laurels. By the time the first West Coast trip came in January, the Magic were already collapsing and the road trip only further that divide. A 1-5 trip sealed the team’s already lagging fate.
So what to make of this 1-3 road trip? What did the Magic learn about themselves? And what does that say about the season?
For one, Orlando saw a lot of its flaws play out and defeat them.
Strong shooting helped build the Magic’s fast start. But it was inevitably not going to last. Orlando was going to come back to earth.
And that would reveal some problems bubbling beneath the surface. The team’s inconsistent defensive effort and poor rebounding chief among them.
The Magic were playing out of their minds for a while. But now in the regular rhythm of the season, the team has settled in as a fairly average team. The Magic are 12th in the league with a 106.1 offensive rating and 15th in the league with a 103.6 defensive rating.
This is life as a .500 team.
There is still more good than bad for the Magic. But clearly, the team’s flaws were exposed on this road trip.
In the losses to the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers, the Orlando Magic’s offense got stuck against strong defenses. And they had no one who could get them moving again. In these difficult moments, as has been the case in several losses this year, Orlando’s star players tried to force things on their own. They were unable to get the team moving consistently.
It seems Orlando struggles in these moments to get their offense moving. When the team is knocked off its pace, the team begins to lose focus and trust in each other. The ball sticks, movement and rotations are a step slow. Everything just seems off.
The next step for the Magic is to play when they are not in control of the pace. They have to hold the ship steady and still give themselves a chance to win.
Here, it is as clear as ever the Magic gain their energy from their offense and making shots rather than from their defense. Their offense feeds their defense rather than the other way around.
Orlando has won just one game shooting worse than 47 percent from the floor. And the team is 3-7 in games where it gives up more than 100 points (even at Orlando’s preferred pace).
The defense does not take the lead for this team. The Magic fall in love with their own shot at times. And when teams are able to slow them down, Orlando’s lack of a go-to scorer becomes apparent as seemingly every player tries to fill that role.
It is hard to say at this point whether Orlando can fix many of these underlying problems. There is going to remain that undercurrent that change will be needed to the roster. Five years of data on many of these players revealed a lot of flaws. Those flaws — from Nikola Vucevic‘s struggles in pick and rolls to Aaron Gordon‘s penchant to do too much on his own — have not gone anywhere. These are the bad habits Orlando must avoid.
There is a distinct formula for a Magic win it seems — a fluid offense, leading to an energetic, swarming defense and control over the pace of the game.
The Magic have done this more often than not. And even on this road trip, the Magic looked fairly comfortable for long stretches.
They dominated the game against the Phoenix Suns, getting their defense right in the second half to secure the win all the while putting up a near-record amount of points on the road. The Magic kept pace with the Warriors for the first half. They raced out to a 14-point lead in the second quarter in Portland, before their shots betrayed them and the Blazers gummed the game up.
The Magic can do very good things. Despite that 1-3 record, there are plenty of signs of encouragement. Just as there are signs of frustration and concern.
Orlando Magic
Orlando adjusted to put away a worse opponent on the road and win a comfortable and tidy game against Phoenix. The Blazers controlled the pace of the game and had a 17-0 run in their back pocket to end the second quarter. Yet, Orlando took the lead in the fourth quarter. That was a close game — really the first one since the gaffe-filled finish at Memphis.
Orlando still has to find a way to win those. But the Magic are getting themselves there. Through frustration and struggles to make baskets, Orlando finds a way to keep itself in the game.
For the most part, the Magic have found the resolve to give themselves a chance. Even if they cannot get across the finish line.
At several points, this season, both coach Frank Vogel and several players have said they were winning games they would not have won last year. The team is showing better resolve.
After the loss to the Blazers on Wednesday, Vogel commented to the media he was still encouraged by the team’s resiliency and their spirit. There is confidence the team can right the ship.
That will be the next thing the Magic have to learn. They will have to learn how to close out games and grind out wins. To stay in the Playoff hunt — at 8-7, Orlando is now tied for the final Playoff spot in the Eastern Conference — the Magic will need to show this resolve and clean up these weaknesses.
The road trip did not help anyone draw too many conclusions. The Magic will have another four-game road trip after two games at home to continue proving themselves. That too will test the team. From there, the Magic may have to scramble to recover or could begin to fall further behind.
This is still a turning point in the season. This stretch still helps set the pace for the season.
After this first road trip, it is safe to say this team is different. It is better. The Magic are generally doing good things.
Next: Terrence Ross searching for his shot, still making impact
But that it also still has a lot of work left to do to accomplish its goals.