When it comes to describing heart and hustle, there is no greater authority for the Orlando Magic than Doc Rivers, the head coach of that 2000 team that shocked the league by going 41-41 and missing out on the playoffs by a few games.
Doc Rivers said the greatest compliment he received about his team that year came from Pat Riley. Among the many legendary stories of the team's tireless effort, Rivers said Riley told him he could not prepare his team for how hard the Magic would play. They could not prepare for the intensity and effort they would see. They would have to match it when they faced it.
It is hard not to see that same kind of intensity in the 2025 Orlando Magic when they play. That kind of intensity and effort has been a hallmark of the culture coach Jamahl Mosley has built in the team through the last three years.
This season though provided a different kind of test.
Five games into the year, the season could have sunk with Paolo Banchero's torn oblique putting him on the shelf for two months. It could have derailed further with Franz Wagner suffering the same injury a little more than a month later.
Yet, the Magic did not fracture or break. Only injuries to two more starters and an illness broke this Magic team's spirit and efficiency. They remain in the race for homecourt advantage in the playoffs and all of their goals from the start of the season despite having Banchero for just 11 games and Wagner for 25.
They told everyone "we are enough" and that they would do things by committee. They proved it was not just lip service. They lived it and succeeded with it.
As much as he will surely hate receiving credit for it, that is because of their head coach. We cannot name any single player our MVP of the first half of the season, like we could name Wagner our MVP of the first quarter, we have to name the man in charge.
This team could have fractured and broken under the pressure of all they had lost. Instead, they believed and succeeded. Held together by the three years playing under Mosley, they ran through that wall and stayed in the race.
What the Magic did this year was no accident. It was built over time because of the belief and intensity Mosley taught and instilled in them. Mosley elevated this team as few coaches could do.
Everyone around the league could see it and can appreciate the job Mosley has done.
"We played them whenever we played them in the Cup game and I felt the same way all game," Rivers said before the Bucks took on the Magic in Orlando. "They had a bunch of guys out and you just could not get them off of you. You could not shake them. And that's a testament to Jamahl really. He's doing it. Their record with their injuries is unbelievable to me. I don't know if anyone is doing a better job in the league right now."
Several coaches had the same sentiment. They did not quit at any point in the game. And that was enough to keep them winning even with the injuries they faced. It was a miracle, but one they worked for.
A culture of belief
What the Orlando Magic did this year is not something that happened randomly. It took years of work and building a culture of belief and effort to survive the injuries to key players the team faced.
Orlando was a seemingly miraculously 23-18 at the season's midpoint. An injury-filled four-game losing streak has taken some luster off the team and what it has done—with the Detroit Pistons' win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, the Orlando Magic fell to eighth in the East as they were last year but they trail the fourth-place Milwaukee Bucks by just three games.
That is something that could only come with supreme belief and buy-in to the style of play they want to be. It's an identity and culture the team has built, as much as president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman may hate those words.
Orlando has established a defensive identity, something incredible considering that would usually slip with all the injuries to the team. The Magic rank fourth in the league in defensive rating but have been in the top three for most of the season—their four-game losing streak when the injuries finally overwhelmed them accounts for the slippage.
The Magic had a vision for their team filled with length and intensity. It is Mosley who empowered the players on this team to take ownership of their culture and identity. He laid the groundwork and the players ran through the wall for him.
That is not something that happens overnight. It comes with three years of trust and, yes, continuity. Mosley built the trust and belief to get the team to survive the first half of the season.
They have a foundation for the way they want to play. And when tested that foundation stood tall.
"Jamahl has done a great job here," New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said before the Knicks' visit to Orlando in late December. "I think they're built with length and versatility, guys who can guard multiple positions. You want to be strong on both sides of the ball, but it gives you a foundation and you can build it from there. There are nights you are not going to shoot the ball great, but you are still going to have a good chance to win."
Thibodeau said that foundation is what gives a team a chance to succeed when they inevitably face injuries. The Magic did not try to replace Banchero or Wagner's production. They just replaced what they lost with effort.
The by-committee approach
There are a lot of players who deserve credit. A middling offensive team losing its offensive workhorse should have fallen apart. But Franz Wagner stepped up and looked like an All-Star.
When he went down, the team doubled down on its defensive identity behind Jalen Suggs' frenetic energy. He nearly willed the team into the semifinals of the NBA Cup on effort alone.
Suggs would go down with a strained back, seemingly going until his body told him to stop. He missed a game in December where the Orlando Magic rallied from 25 points down to defeat the rival Miami Heat. They followed it with a win over the Boston Celtics in their next outing, erasing a 15-point deficit there too.
In their second game without Suggs because of the back injury, they went to New York City on the second night of a back-to-back and rallied to score their only win over the Knicks this season.
There is a lot in this team. It is a credit to everyone the Magic have rallied like this. It is a credit to every player on this team, the entire coaching staff and, most importantly Mosley.
Mosley has given the team ownership over everything this team does and they hold each other to the standard, lifting each other and encouraging. They have built a culture of physicality, accountability and belief.
Mosley has his cliches—the by-committee one has become the favorite meme among Magic fans this season—but cliches come with a grain of truth in them. With all the injuries, Mosley spends the first half looking for the role player of the day who will step up. He then presses that advantage for as long as he can.
It is a miracle that this happened. But it really is not.
This does not happen without the work of the past three years. They have seen all of this work. They believe deeply in what they are doing.
That all points back to Mosley and the foundation he built. He has been the architect creating this culture of selflessness. It is something the team will continue to build with now that the promise of health is on the horizon.