Even undermanned, Orlando Magic’s wins are for the culture

The Orlando Magic team that walked off the floor with a 104-96 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night is not the Magic team anyone envisioned.

There were only four players active Wednesday night who were on the team’s opening night roster. Injuries (five of them long-term and two of the check the injury report daily variety) and health and safety protocols (six players by Wednesday night) have completely gutted the roster beyond recognition.

Nobody will feel sorry for them as COVID-19 works its way through the entire league. The Brooklyn Nets on Saturday and the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday were hardly recognizable either. Monday’s game against the Toronto Raptors was completely postponed as both teams dealt with continued infections.

Still, the games are getting played. And this young team has to learn something from them. No opportunity should get wasted.

For a team at the bottom of the standings with just six wins — and off to the slowest start in franchise history — any sign of positivity matters. Even if they understand wins are not the constant measure for success.

The Orlando Magic have operated fairly smoothly despite an extreme number of absences. That speaks to the culture the team is trying to build and is seeing work.

The Magic still need some sign of what they are doing is working. Especially under this kind of adversity with only one opening night starter in the lineup (and a rookie at that), the team could have easily splintered and given in.

Instead, this Magic team has done what it has always done, even if it did not result in a win consistently, if at all. This team fought.

They fought for each other, standing on the bench to cheer each other on. They took on the opportunity to play with energy even if it was imperfect.

The Magic are trying to build something from the ground up. Everyone knows it. It takes laying one brick after another to get there.

As many asterisks and qualifications as you have to put on these two wins, they certainly seem to mean something.

"“I think our guys competed, they fought for one another,” Mosley said after Wednesday’s win. “Having 27 assists, that’s being able to share the basketball. But more importantly, sitting down and guarding. Understanding our guys just wanted to compete and fight for one another.”"

So much of this time and these wins are about all the little things the Magic have talked about since training camp.

It is indeed about the way the team moved the ball, recording 27 assists on 38 field goals. Eleven of those came from Robin Lopez, in a surprising playmaking turn as players and cut and moved off him. Teams respect his post-game and send doubles his way to pressure him.

But Robin Lopez was able to find cutters, whether it was Admiral Schofield or Franz Wagner or whomever. He always seemed to make the right play and figured out he would need to be unselfish for his team to win.

It is indeed about the way the team defended.

Orlando gave up only 40.0-percent shooting and fewer than 100 points for just the fifth time all season. Atlanta’s 103.2 offensive rating is the ninth-best this season. All seven of the Magic’s wins are in the top-10, predictably.

It is indeed too about the way the team celebrated every moment that built to the win.

It was how the team celebrated a charge Freddie Gillespie took in one of his first possessions in a Magic uniform. Or how the team stood up after a big three from Schofield in the fourth quarter. Or how the team just sticks together to help each other maintain their poise.

Orlando is looking for signs the team gets the bigger picture. And they are all there, especially in a win like this.

"“It’s really impressive to come in with a lot of energy and give us so much energy on the court,” Franz Wagner said of the team’s new additions. “I think it’s really difficult for them to do that just not knowing the system yet, really having no time to adjust to anything. I’m really impressed. Even better I think they are all really good guys and we have built really good chemistry already.”"

Those new players of course have a ton of motivation to play well and try to impress. This is a golden opportunity to get on a NBA court, one that probably would not have existed without the pandemic and the sudden surge in positive cases around the league.

Still, it would be easy to see a team like this fold. Instead, it speaks to the kind of culture and desire the team has to win that everyone has seemingly fallen into place.

Each player added to the roster has done something impressive during these two wins. That does not happen without the ecosystem to support their arrival.

B.J. Johnson credited Jamahl Mosley and the coaching staff for helping him focus on and improve his defense, one of the big things keeping him from getting a permanent spot in the league. Johnson said they have done a good job instilling confidence in him while instructing him on what they want him to do.

The transition from Lakeland certainly helps him along with Hassani Gravett (who earned his first start Wednesday), Aleem Ford and Admiral Schofield. The two Magic squads run a lot of the same offensive and defensive sets.

But their arrival has likely also helped the Magic refocus themselves on what is truly important about the way they play. Certainly, the absences from the three teams they have faced have helped some too.

But it is still also clear Orlando is playing better and playing closer to the style the team wanted to play. This kind of a cultural reset should help the team too when players begin to return.

"“I think our guys are ready to take on the next challenge,” Mosley said after Wednesday’s win. “We’re going to take it one game at a time. A win like this helps them continue understand the process of working and the process of getting better and how we need to play night in and night out defensively and making sure we are sitting down and guarding for the full 48.”"

Orlando needed all of these reminders. The team needed to see and feel it on the court and get the confidence that comes from playing that way.

The Magic may be undermanned and playing teams undermanned themselves. That context certainly matters.

But so too does the team doing all the right things despite it and showing their opponents, at least, what they want to be about.