The Orlando Magic have seemingly lost games every way they can during this seven-game homestand. It is no comfort to lose close, but it is a sense that everything is so tantalizingly close.
All the Magic would need to get themselves right was for one of these close games to go their way. Just a little shot of confidence. That would be a heck of a lift.
Confidence is everything in this league. When a team does not have it, everyone can see and fell it. Everyone can sense the desperation for a win. Everyone can sense the Magic are trying to find that breakthrough and coming up short.
And nobody is letting up. Confidence was fleeting and nowhere to be seen for the Orlando Magic in a 125-123 loss to the Chicago Bulls that saw the Magic lose another late lead and their defense collapse under the pressure of another fast-paced guard.
Before the Magic even get anywhere else, they need to look themselves in the mirror and find the will to win again.
"These teams are coming in with confidence, they see that we've lost games," Paolo Banchero said after Thursday's loss. "They feel like we're beatable. You can't say anything about last year. It's a different year. It's almost the end of this season. We're a different team. Teams are seeing what our weaknesses are and they are attacking them. We've had trouble adjusting."
Another collapse
Confidence is indeed low right now. And it is evident in how the team finishes games.
The Orlando Magic led by five points with 3:49 to play in a critical game against the Chicago Bulls when the team started to tighten up. Coby White scored the Bulls' final nine points on his way to a career-high 44 points.
On a possession that featured three offensive rebounds, Coby White ended it with a thunderous dunk after outmaneuvering Paolo Banchero to get to the rim and give the Bulls the lead for good.
The Magic could not find answers, turning it over three times in the final 2:30. They still had their chance but could not take the lead back on several occasions. The Bulls had answers at every turn.
On the final possession of the game, they won a jump ball and Paolo Banchero took the ball upcourt with a timeout in his pocket. He tried to feed it to Franz Wagner. After recovering a nearly stolen ball, Wagner fed it back to Banchero for a wide-open free.
That missed but Wendell Carter was underneath the basket for a clear tip-in. But he came down with the ball and rose for the game-tying dunk too late, sending the Magic to their fifth straight loss and sixth on this seven-game homestand.
The explanation for this loss and what happened on the final play really says so much about where this team is at.
"I thought P[aolo] was going to knock that down," Carter said after Thursday's loss. "When it came off, I thought I had enough time to come down with it and go back up. I probably should have just done a putback. It doesn't come down to that. We are allowing ourselves to put the game in the wrong hands. The other day, we put it in the hands of the referees, today we put it in the hands of one single play at the end of the game."
He who hesitates is lost
It is never that single play. But that play was emblematic of so much of what has been wrong about the Orlando Magic during this stretch—now 8-20 since Jalen Suggs went down with a back injury on Jan. 3.
There is a hesitancy in everything they do. Wendell Carter not going up immediately to put that ball back in is the same problem as passing an open shot. They are looking for answers and not finding them in themselves.
The Magic are playing close games, as frustrating as that is to say or accept.
They put themselves in a position to win against the Memphis Grizzlies, losing when they could not get a timeout called on the final shot. They got a potential game-winning layup from Franz Wagner against the Toronto Raptors and then lost on a Ja'Kobe Walter three.
Frustration is only building because they could not get over the hump. They know they can play better. But they tighten up too.
They lost a 17-point second-half lead to the Grizzlies. Fell behind and had to rally from 10 down with two minutes to go against the Raptors and then got into a back-and-forth battle in the rematch.
Against the Bulls, the Magic led the entire second half, but then things got tight down the stretch. They lost their defensive focus and let the Bulls take the game. They could not grab it back.
"Some of it is late-game execution," Franz Wagner said after Thursday's loss. "Most of these games, we shouldn't be in that spot in my opinion. I think that's the bigger issue. I'm not saying we deserve to be somewhere else playing the way we're playing. That's what gets you in these situations. We've got to clean that up, man up and just individually and as a group figure it out."
The Magic have allowed their weaknesses to snowball. They had their offense going, but they let go of the rope defensively getting sucked into the Bulls' fast pace.
The Bulls like to play at a fast pace—the fastest in the league—and they pushed the tempo on every miss. Chicago recorded 25 fast-break points on 8-for-11 shooting. They added 20 second-chance points on 13 offensive rebounds.
Those are hustle points the Magic must win—even if they had 13 fast-break points and 22 second-chance points themselves. Not to mention the Magic still won the paint 54-50. With their shooting struggles, Orlando's margins are thin.
These were back-breaking chances that Orlando did not get, especially for a team looking for any momentum.
Every time the Magic missed shots or went through a spate of turnovers, White got free for a three or hit a few shots in a row. Six-point leads became ties in an instant. Despite 123 points, the Magic's offense was found lacking.
And the defense was nowhere to be found.
The game marked the fifth-worst defensive rating of the season for the Magic—122.5 points allowed per 100 possessions. Three of those bottom five defensive ratings came on this seven-game homestand.
Orlando is trying to reach back and find its identity and finding nothing in reserve.
"I think as a collective we've got to do a better job staying locked in for all 48," Carter said after Thursday's loss. "We do a solid job throughout the game. But we have our lapses that turn into snowballs and create bigger leads or we have a lead and teams come back. We have to do a better job of putting a full 48 together. That's to each man. At the end of the day, everyone has to look in the mirror and just do better."
The road does not get easier for the Magic with a five-game road trip upcoming. The only answer to get better and improve is to win.
That seems so simple but it is not. The Magic have struggled to win for a while. They are in a deep funk. And whether the team wants to admit it or not, they are feeding into it with their errors dragging them down.
As Carter said, everything is in somebody else's hands. The Magic need to take back control of their season.