Orlando Magic Playbook: What the Orlando Magic can learn from their Oklahoma City collapse

What to learn from Orlando Magic’s collapse

The finishing touch — OKC 116, ORL 108, Final

At the end of the day, all the Orlando Magic can do is tip their hat to the Oklahoma City Thunder and credit them for making the plays they needed to win the game. The Thunder took advantage of the Magic’s mistakes and lack of composure.

But they also hit some really tough shots against good defense. They made the plays and shots to win the game where the Magic could not match.

The play above was the beginning of the end with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hitting a tough shot over Jalen Suggs and Bol Bol to begin to ice the game away.

The final score came from Lugentz Dort. With all the attention on Gilgeous-Alexander, three defender focus intently on him, allowing Dort to pop out to the three-point line unguarded and with a half-flare screen to prevent anyone from challenging him.

At a certain point, the Magic needed to create their own opportunities, but they forced their share of misses and mistakes too. Orlando just could not get a shot to go in on their end to get things moving back in the right direction.

If Orlando gets the Paolo Banchero lay-in to go in or one of Franz Wagner’s jumpers to go in, everything might well have been different.

If there is something important to learn it is that games turn on very few plays and very few moments. At least with how close the team is playing.

The Magic are struggling right now to make these winning plays that help build momentum to finish these games out. But these games are turning on one or two possessions and makes and misses.

It is easy to feel trepidation and nerves watching this team play. Add in fatigue and a Thunder team in complete control of the pace and it is no wonder how things ended up. The Magic needed a play and no one was able to give them one — note here too that Wendell Carter was the only to score during this stretch, albeit all from the free throw line, despite his 30 points in the game.

Orlando still has a lot to learn on how to close games.

In Tuesday’s loss, everything went wrong. There were multiple failures that just seemed to domino and build upon each other.

The tape does not show a team that was doing a ton of things wrong in the end. But it showed a team that looked a bit disorganized and flustered as momentum was building against it. It showed a team that was out of control and lacked the composure, ultimately, to win.