The Orlando Magic made some key mistakes late in the game and throughout the second half, frittering away a chance to win and hindering their growth.
The Orlando Magic had one of those flashes.
The flash that helped guide them to an 8-4 record and make them the darlings of the league. That team is still in there, buried deep in there somewhere.
For much of this season, injuries have buried that team. But it was always something more. That cannot be the excuse every time. The team still has to give itself the chance to win and find a way to compete. If they are going to be next man up, the next man has to step up.
That margin for error was especially small against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. And increasingly the Magic seemed to make that margin for error smaller through their own mistakes.
And as Orlando made a comeback to make it a one-possession game, it was their own mistakes again that cost them.
Trailing by three points, the Magic defended Isaiah Thomas perfectly to force a missed shot. Dwyane Wade was lurking underneath the basket and grabbed the offensive rebound for the putback seemingly unguarded. That was mistake one.
Mistake two came as the Magic tried to inbound it and get themselves back to within one possession.
The late-developing inbounds play never really developed. Evan Fournier threw it in toward D.J. Augustin who failed to break away from his man. The Cavaliers tipped it and took possession, holding on for a 131-127 win at the Amway Center on Saturday.
If only those were the only two possessions the Magic had where they seemingly gave away the ball or had a string of possessions where they lacked focus and care for the basketball.
Orlando needed a frenzied comeback in the fourth quarter though largely because of their own mistakes. Mistakes exactly like those two.
Among the Magic’s 19 turnovers were a few inbounds turnovers, bad passes directly to defenders and long outlet passes easily intercepted. Many of these led directly to Cavaliers points. Cleveland scored 24 points off Orlando’s turnovers.
Compared to the stats the Magic got back from the Cavaliers — 33 points off 17 turnovers — that might seem relatively meager. But this is a 12-win team at the season’s midpoint. The margin for error with this group is significantly smaller. Especially going up against a player like LeBron James who can seemingly lazily put up a triple-double in any game.
Orlando Magic
The Cavaliers took as much as a 23-point lead in the second half. It looked like they were going to blow the game open. And continually, Orlando put itself further behind with mistake after mistake, seemingly on simple effort plays. It is hard to come back or stay in a game with such a deadly opponent when there are these simple, correctable mistakes.
Often it has been the simple plays that have cost the Magic throughout the season. Boxing out to prevent an offensive rebound — Cleveland had 23 second-chance points on 14 offensive rebounds — or protecting the ball. That has been a point of emphasis all season that does not seem to be locking into place.
The Magic have seen their turnovers tick up for several weeks now, leaving the game turning the ball over on 14.6 percent of possessions. Orlando turned it over on 17.6 percent of possessions Saturday.
That included eight turnovers for 15 points in the telltale third quarter where the Cavaliers took control over the game.
Even things as simple as getting out to the perimeter to challenge shots and getting a hand up to contest are inconsistent. These are the simple things every team has to do to win. And consistently these are the things the Magic are not doing.
It is how a close game at halftime turned into a blowout. And then how the Magic turned a blowout into a close game at the very end.
That has always been the thing with this group. There are these long flashes of absolutely brilliant play. But too often it is the simple gritty things that are missing. And when the Magic put everything together they look like a really good team.
Doing this against the Cavaliers of all teams was impressive. Mario Hezonja and Wesley Iwundu turned in perhaps their best all-around games of the season. And Aaron Gordon was as reliable as ever, taking over in the fourth quarter as star players tend to do.
The Magic started doing all the things the Cavaliers did to them in the third quarter. They just ran out of time and their margin for error is much smaller.
There is a moral victory to take if the Magic want to find one. But there is also the lesson that it is their own errors that are holding them back.
Correcting those may not be enough to make the Magic a Playoff team — not this year, those odds are extremely long — but it certainly makes them a more competitive team. And that is about all anyone can ask for at this point of the season. That is the most important thing for this team to accomplish to continue growing.
And it is something they hold the keys to. It is about the effort they put in and the attention to detail they give.
Next: Grades: Cleveland Cavaliers 131, Orlando Magic 127
Orlando lost all that in the third quarter and regained it in the fourth quarter. The results were evident.