The Orlando Magic continue to show long glimpses of what they can be. But inconsistency is quickly making this season harder than it needs to be.
The level of stress and determination is visible on Evan Fournier’s face every time he brings up the ball.
Without Nikola Vucevic on the floor, the offense is on him a lot. He is a player who can take over games but can struggle against elite defenses. Evan Fournier for all his heroics during this past week is still a limited player.
No one could blame him for doing everything he can. He is doing everything he can. But nothing seems to be enough. Not all the time. Not at the level it needs to be.
Individual heroics are not going to get the job done. It will always take a team effort. And when it turns around, the Orlando Magic became an instantly different team.
The Orlando Magic were down by three points after Glenn Robinson III hit a 3-pointer. The team was in danger of losing to the lowly Golden State Warriors. And the team suddenly snapped back to attention.
Markelle Fultz hit a pull-up jumper. Jonathan Isaac then blocked Draymond Green‘s shot and Markelle Fultz followed with a scooping layup over Green again. The Magic were back in the lead.
Orlando was suddenly locked in defensively. And then Fournier put the cap on a career night, driving past Green (claiming he was fouled) and finishing over the perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
Orlando had a three-point lead with 15 seconds left. That should have been enough to skate to the end. Forget the 3-pointer that Alec Burks made late to cut into what was once a five-point lead. The Magic had things in the bag.
Nothing is ever easy.
The Warriors came back. They forced a five-second violation and had their chance to win the game. Fournier was convinced Burks’ final shot was going in with the Magic up two.
These final minutes of the game against the Warriors displayed all the strengths and weaknesses of this Magic team. How collected and composed they can be on both ends. How a focused team can beat back a bad shooting night and find a way to win.
And then also how difficult this team can still be to figure out. Unsure of themselves and unable to generate offense. A defense that gives up big moments at the wrong times. Momentum-building plays given up and soul-crushing moments.
It was a reminder of how razor thin it is for this team between winning and losing basketball.
This might be the lot of an undermanned team to some extent. This might be the inconsistency that comes with an injury-depleted team that was trying to find its way. The good looks so good. The bad still looks really bad.
And the pieces in the middle? That is what determines whether the Magic will win or lose games at this point.
Orlando is still figuring out its way to play five games after Nikola Vucevic’s injury. The team has at times found its footing offensively and at times been abysmally bad.
The only constant has been Fournier’s brilliance. He is averaging 24.8 points per game in the last five games. Fournier is seeking his shots and making them at a decent rate for a player with such a high usage. Defenses are keying in on him and the elite teams are forcing him to make difficult decisions.
Everything else is seemingly up in the air. The team will go through stretches where it all works together. The ball zips, the defense creates scoring opportunities and everything works. Then it goes into a lull. Things are not so consistent and the ball sticks.
This was the case throughout Sunday’s game against the Warriors. The Magic struggled to maintain momentum.
They built a nine-point lead and gave up four straight out of a timeout. They went up by 12 in the second quarter, then gave up six straight to see the lead cut in half. The Warriors harassed and goaded the Magic into turnovers. Orlando’s own frustrations allowed Golden State to attack in transition.
The Magic struggled to maintain momentum. They allowed too many points in the paint and overran closeouts. They fouled unnecessarily from being in the wrong position and reaching in too much. There was no killer instinct to put the game away, just the mad scramble and desperation of a team that knew it needed to win.
This was not the disciplined defensive unit that has made its mark on the league early in the season.
It still reached that level in the second half. The Warriors scored considerably fewer points in the paint and had only 45 points in the second half.
Not that Orlando was perfect defensively in the second half either. The Magic nearly lost the game on the Warriors’ hot shooting. That remains the fine line between winning and losing.
The Magic as a team at the moment still have the moments where they look brilliant. They are long moments too. The playoff team this group can be still is present. And the Magic are still trying to hold the ship steady and scratch out wins until Vucevic returns.
But then there are the moments where everything falls apart. The team has not been able to sustain its strong play, even against relatively weak competition. The cold-shooting quarters are enough to bury even the longest periods of sustained play.
Orlando can see all the pieces to its puzzle — and this was true even with Vucevic. The team knows how it has to play. Players acknowledge what they have to do better.
The problem right now is executing and finishing the job. The Magic are not the team they know they can be. They are not the potential they have shown.
Even against the league’s worst team, the Magic still have to be attentive and pay attention to detail. And that is the part they are missing.
The one bad thing about continuity is the assumption that everything just rolls over to the next year. Through nearly a quarter of the season, the Magic know this is not true. This is a new fight and a new challenge.
Orlando is still trying to find the consistency to step up to it.