PHILADELPHIA -- The Orlando Magic scratched and clawed to make it a one-point game early in the fourth quarter, giving themselves a chance to advance to the Playoffs without facing elimination.
The Magic seemed to resemble their identity from last year, dragging this game into the mud and turning it into a game of pure grit and defense.
Then Tyrese Maxey did something the Magic do not seem capable of doing. He willed his team back into the lead with tough shot after tough shot. He spammed pick and rolls until the Magic proved they could stop him -- they could not.
Maxey started a personal 7-0 run, hitting a floater, a step-back three and then another floater to give the Sixers an eight-point lead they would never give up.
The Philadelphia 76ers claimed a 109-97 victory to set their date with the Boston Celtics, sending the Orlando Magic home for a do-or-die elimination game against the surging Charlotte Hornets on Friday.
The Magic were climbing uphill and eventually could not climb anymore.
"I think they made plays, and we didn't," Desmond Bane said after Wednesday's loss. "I thought we had a couple of good possessions, open threes, attacks to the rim. For the most part, I thought our process was good. They made more plays than us, especially down the stretch."
And Orlando finds itself asking a lot of the same frustrating questions. Even if the team's effort and process is right, why is everything so hard? Why is it so difficult to climb this mountain?
And in such a critical game why does it feel even steeper?
Absent stars
Star players are star players because they are expected to step up in big games. They are star players because they make things easier for the players around them. They help cover for the team's flaws with thier individual brilliance.
In the end, the Orlando Magic's Play-In game came down to those star players on each team.
Where Tyrese Maxey was leading his team to victory, Paolo Banchero was invisible in the second half with just five of his 18 points and 2-for-10 shooting in the second half. He could not answer the bell in yet another six-turnover performance -- his 15th game with five or more turnovers this season.
The Magic came up empty from their best player -- or at least the one with the ball the most. It is hard to win a meaningful game like that.
"I thought we had good looks throughout the game," Paolo Banchero said after Wednesday's loss. "Obviously, we didn't shoot well. I didn't shoot well. That's tough. . . . It's on me, it's on other guys to be able to perform at a level that we can get that win. Including myself. I wasn't making shots and coming up short."
Orlando got little help from its best players.
Banchero finished 7 for 22 from the floor. Franz Wagner, still ramping up after returning from his high ankle sprain, scored only 12 points on 5-for-11 shooting. He scored 10 on 4-for-8 shooting in the second half. But that included missing a critical three-pointer with four minutes to play.
Only Desmond Bane had a breakthrough with 34 points on 4-for-6 shooting from deep, keeping the Magic in the game in the third quarter.
Orlando's best players did not make things easier for the team in the end. The Magic saw plenty of missed open looks that cost them, too.
The game came down to making and missing shots. But the team's best players struggled to seize the spotlight.
A season searching for relief
The attention should not be solely on Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. There were enough poor offensive performances to go around.
Jalen Suggs went 1 for 9 and 1 for 6 from three for four points. Wendell Carter was a paltry 1 for 7, looking parituclarly ground-bound with the Philadelphia 76ers flying around for four blocks.
Orlando got only 42 field goal attempts in the paint. The team finished 7 for 27 from deep. Take out Desmond Bane's 4-for-6 showing, and the team was 3 for 21 from deep. It is hard to make anything easy when the 3-pointer is an afterthought for the defense.
But the ease with which the Sixers, a difficult offensive team themselves, were able to make the difference after the Magic seemingly fought so hard speaks to what is too true about this team.
Running this offense has become a slog, putting players in the wrong positions and relying on poor playmakers to create. Not to mention having poor shooting that congests space.
The poor shooting can be discouraging and it has finally overwhelmed the Magic's typically tough defense.
"You've just got to keep playing," Anthony Black said in the locker room after Wednesday's loss. "More shots are going to find it. The next game, they are going to leave us open again. You've got to take and make shots to win basketball games. We just have to stay confident and stay aggressive."
The Magic struggled offensively once again in a postseason game, scoring only 99.0 points per 100 possessions. It is the sixth postseason game in the last three years that the Magic failed to reach a point per possession.
Orlando stubbed its toe beyond its shooting.
The Magic had 15 turnovers that turned into 15 points, a 15.3 percent turnover rate. Eleven of those 15 turnovers came from the team's two main stars in Bane and Banchero. Those were a lot of mistakes to overcome in a low-possession game.
It is no secret the Magic's offense has been rough. Even after having its first offensive rating outside the bottom 10 in the league since 2012, the Magic's offense has been a pain to watch.
Frustration has boiled over how difficult it has been to execute.
"We need to be organized and know what shots we're looking for and what shots we're not looking for and everybody work together to find those shots consistently," Franz Wagner said in the locker room after Wednesday's loss. "I think we did it at times. We also didn't shoot great from three. Some of those were good looks. You've got to live with those."
It is symbolic of the lost potential in this season.
The Magic have struggled to meet the moment. And when they look for relief, they have found it difficult to find. There is no help to make things easier.
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