Everyone can admit this is not good for the Orlando Magic.
Since Paolo Banchero's return two weeks ago, the team has not gotten the offensive boost it hoped for, scoring 100.0 points per 100 possessions in its last eight games. The team has gone 1-7 in those games, needing a comeback against the struggling Philadelphia 76ers for its lone win.
There is context to all of that, of course.
The team was dealing with an unusual rash of injuries that often left it with only eight or nine available players. Until Thursday, the team played without three of its five normal starters, and one played under a minute restriction in his return.
Still, the team hit rock bottom with Thursday's 101-79 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. It marked the season's worst offensive performance statistically.
More than that, the loss marked the Magic's fifth straight loss. It dropped their record to .500 on the season and seventh in the Eastern Conference. The Magic are at a critical part of the season that could turn in any number of directions—including back up the standings and into the race for homecourt advantage or further into the Play-In realm.
First, the Magic have to get themselves out of trouble. They have to find a win. They have to find some offense.
No one is coming to save them. It starts with them and finding their spark once again.
"It's going to take everyone," Franz Wagner said after scoring 20 points in his return game Thursday. "We have to stick together. Also not making any excuses. No one is feeling sorry for us. If any one of us is, we have to stop that right now because it is going to snowball if that is the case. I think ups and downs are part of the season and they are opportunities to grow. I think there is a good chance for us to do that."
A rough patch
Every team will go through rough patches in the season. The now-fourth-place Milwaukee Bucks started the season 2-8. The Boston Celtics are 12-12 in their last 24 games. Even the Cleveland Cavaliers have now lost four of their last seven.
There might be levels to the struggle, but every team is going to hit a rough patch. This is the Orlando Magic's rough patch.
It does not help either that the team has lost 11 of its last 15 games and has not won consecutive games since the win over the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics on Dec. 21 and 23. And those games required comebacks of 25 and 15 points to win.
Then again, Orlando has faced losing streaks before. The team lost five in a row in the immediate aftermath of Banchero's injury in October and November. They recovered to win 12 of their next 13 games after that to get to 15-7. Who is to say this team could not find that kind of rhythm again?
This is not that different from then. The Magic had a 98.0 offensive rating and shot a 46.0 percent effective field goal percentage during the first five-game losing streak. They have a 95.4 offensive rating and 42.7 percent effective field goal percentage this time around.
Either way, this is not how the season was supposed to go. This kind of January swoon was exactly what the team talked all preseason like they were trying to avoid. But here they are again.
Injuries have taken away some of the team's consistency. But they have to come together and find it.
"It's hard to catch a rhythm with guys being out so much," Tristan da Silva said after Thursday's loss. "Last game I saw the injury report and saw we had seven guys out. Obviously, that doesn't help. We just kind of have to stick together and figure something out. Obviously, having Franz back definitely helps directing the floor, seeing stuff out there, attacking mismatches and stuff like that. We're just going to have to learn from this and move forward."
Help on the way?
Relief seems on the way on the injury front.
Franz Wagner returned after a 20-game absence on Thursday. The Orlando Magic upgraded Jalen Suggs (low back strain) and Goga Bitadze (concussion protocol) to QUESTIONABLE ahead of Saturday's crucial game against the Detroit Pistons (the Orlando Magic trail the Pistons now by one game and this meeting determines the season series tiebreaker).
Orlando has gone 2-8 since Suggs injured his back. The team has lost all five games since Bitadze's injury. Both players are key parts of one of the top defenses in the league.
A defense that has slipped as much as the offense has slipped in this stretch—115.7 points allowed per 100 possessions in the last eight games.
They cannot change their injuries and they cannot change their path. They can only try to move forward into their future.
And that lies wholly with them to get the job done. The league is not feeling sorry for the Magic. And the only ones who will help the Magic right the ship is themselves.
"We obviously know we are in a little rut right now," veteran guard Cory Joseph said after Thursday's game. "You've just got to go back to the basics and pull each other out. We're not playing our best basketball or shooting our best basketball. But we haven't been shooting as well as we want to the whole year. We have to find other ways. Good teams find ways to pull themselves out sooner than later."
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has said the team has to come out focused and make sure they use their court time—even coming out of the locker room for warmups—to lock in. The team has recognized the injuries have played a role. It is a reality they have faced and it is something exhausting them.
But no one is going to go easy on them. The schedule marches on. The Magic must create their own energy and find their own way through to the other side.
Having key players return will help, but there is no switch that the team can flip. Things do not suddenly get better. The team has to work its way there.
It starts with regaining confidence in their work and reclaiming their identity. Energy and defense will go a long way to lifting the offense—the opposite of what is happening now where the offensive struggles seem to drain the team of energy.
They have to be more in tune with the details. Doing the little things well will help the team minimize mistakes and help the team click.
They cannot wallow in their frustration.
"You can have a woe is me, this stinks. Because it does stink when you come out and don't perform to your level," Jamahl Mosley said after Thursday's game. "You can say OK, we didn't do our job tonight or play to our standard of basketball. Have that for tonight. Then when you wake up in the morning, you have to realize you have a job to do because there is nothing or no one coming to save you."
The time to mourn and be frustrated ended when the team left the building Thursday. Friday was a film review day for the Magic to learn where they can get better.
At the end of the day, it is everyone in that room watching those mistakes that can fix this and get them out. They have done it before.