The Orlando Magic desperately needed a spark trialing by 12 points with 3:36 to play. They had been outworked all game but the Indiana Pacers -- for all of their experience -- were starting to look like a 15-win team on a 16-game losing streak.
The Magic's closing kick came suddenly, erasing that 12-point deficit with nine straight points and then giving themselves a chance thanks to winning a jump ball with five seconds left. Orlando showed it had some fight.
The team just needed to hope it had enough time to turn things around.
They drew up a play that got Banchero the ball on the wing. But he again waited. This time for Desmond Bane to cut to the basket.
When the Pacers covered, that, he at last drove to the basket where Siakam and Huff met him and blocked the shot.
Time expired. It ran out on the Magic, allowing the Pacers to survive 128-126.
Is this the kind of loss that means time has run out on the Magic's Playoff hopes?
This is not the kind of effort and intensity that a playoff team is supposed to have if the Magic are serious in their pursuit of the 5-seed or anything in the Playoffs.
Orlando has essentially given back the progress of its seven-game win streak. The team does not have the same urgency and precision on this five-game losing streak.
"It's frustrating to lose games," Paolo Banchero said after Monday's loss. "But, in my opinion, you can't drink the Kool-Aid after a seven-game win streak. You have to treat it the same as any other part of the season because you can go lose five straight like we have. It's about staying even-keeled. It's just the way the NBA is. The moment you don't come to play is the moment you get beat."
It is a game the Magic needed to have that they once again frittered away. It was a game again where the Magic were left trying to figure out who they are and all the big questions that have haunted them all season.
When do they start?
Coach Jamahl Mosley warned before Monday's game that the Orlando Magic needed to respect their opponent. Even though the Indiana Pacers had just 15 wins and were on this 16-game losing streak, they were a team filled with veteran players who were in the NBA Finals just last year.
That warning was not heeded.
The Magic's deficit started from the beginning, then, as the Pacers outworked the Magic and kept them on the perimeter, holding them to 9-for-29 shooting overall in the first quarter and 4-for-14 from three.
The Pacers used those early misses to supercharge their offense, getting 14 of their 26 fast-break points in the first quarter alone.
To make matters worse, they quickly built their lead, going up by eight points just five minutes into the game and leading by 10 when the Magic broke the starting lineup. It was an all too familiar scene for the Magic who often find themselves trailing to being games.
Orlando is too often climbing out of the hole.
"There is a lot of controllables that we let slack a little bit right from the get-go," Tristan da Silva said after Monday's loss. "With a team like Indiana that's always going to play their brand of basketball which is super fast and attacking you at all times, no matter what, I think we could have done a better job controlling the game early on and making sure we put our stamp on the game."
The Magic indeed took its foot off the gas and never went to put the Pacers away, allowing them to regain their footing in the third quarter after the Magic took a five-point halftime lead.
The Pacers opened as much as an 11-point lead on their way to a 44-point third quarter. When the starting lineup broke, Indiana went from down five to up four. The Magic were climbing uphill against a team that was suddenly hot and confident.
The Pacers, who have struggled to shoot from three for most of the season, made 16 of 35 from deep (45.7 percent). Once Indiana got rolling, Orlando could not get stops.
The Pacers indeed proved they were not going to roll over. And the Magic seemed unable to regain control or find their identity again.
Losses at the worst time
All of this is indeed coming at the worst time.
In a stage of the season when everyone is expecting the team to come together and build momentum toward the Playoffs, the Magic are playing some of their worst basketball this season. They look more like the inconsistent bunch that exchanged wins and losses through a frustrating January.
Only this time, the losses are piling up. They have not found any relief.
Suddenly the dream of finishing fifth is getting further away -- the Toronto Raptors lead the Orlando Magic by two games and the Atlanta Hawks are now 1.5 games ahead in sixth. And while the Orlando Magic still sit in eighth, they lead the hard-charging 10th-place Charlotte Hornets by one game.
Orlando desperately needs a win to stop the bleeding. Losing to a Pacers team reeling in the standings only stings in that pursuit. There was no excuse for not being prepared for an opponent desperate to win and giving into their control.
"Losing a game in general is not the right thing to do where we are and what we're trying to accomplish," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Monday's loss. "It's not just the record, it's a team that knows how to play basketball. It's a team that understands exactly the moment they were in. They were hungry to come out and get it, and that's what they did."
The Magic never showed the urgency or intensity on defense to slow the Pacers down. They never looked or played like their playoff lives were on the line. Not until the very end when it was indeed too late.
The question is whether the Magic have come to this realization too late.
A season filled with frustration has been on the brink for several weeks. Just as the team looked to be finding its stride, it has fallen flat on its face again.
And there is no time to wallow in it. The Magic need the urgency they did not show on Monday to save their season once again.