The Orlando Magic went to the locker room at halftime of Game 6 feeling the vibes.
Up by 22 points, they could taste the second round. The crowd was in a frenzy, spurring the team on as they seemed ready to put the final nail in the Detroit Pistons' season.
They were 24 minutes away from exorcising so many demons.
But demons haunt you. They never go away. And the moment you relax, they take over.
And this Magic team has some demons.
The Magic followed their 60-point first half with a 19-point clunker in the second half, scoring only eight points in the fourth quarter in a dismal 1-for-20 shooting effort (the lone field goal coming with 2:24 to play). The Magic went 4 for 27 overall in the second half and at one point missed 23 straight shots.
That is how a 17-point lead when that streak started with 3:23 to play in the third quarter turned into a 93-79 defeat at home in Game 6, sending this series to a Game 7 in Detroit.
The Magic's demons had the last laugh.
"I think they were just playing more desperate than us, playing harder than us, whether it was offensive rebounds or heating up their pressure to get steals," Desmond Bane said after Game 6. "Really kind of took us out of our stuff, messed with our flow. It's going to be hard to win games when you score 19 points in the half. I thought a lot of that is they came out with more energy than us in the second half."
This is always who the Magic were. Bane said the team's bad habits caught up to them and they could not nip it in the bud before it snowballed into this.
Orlando's chances to advance slipped through their fingers for such a familiar, frustrating reason.
Offense has always been the problem
Everyone understood that the Orlando Magic was deeply flawed well before this series began. They were still searching for ways to create an offense that could get out of the bottom 10 in the league.
The Magic accomplished that goal, even if barely. But the team was never viewed as anything more than an average offense at best. Their shooting remained a huge problem, and it would show up in the Playoffs when teams can hone in on every weakness.
Orlando's offense looks pretty good when the ball is moving.
The team had 16 assists on 23 field goals and shot 56.1 percent from the floor and 7 for 18 from three in the first half. The Magic posted a 146.3 offensive rating to go with a 92.7 defensive rating, thanks to a 35-12 shellacking in the second quarter.
There was no hint that the other shoe was about to drop.
But the Detroit Pistons upped their defensive pressure. They started to get the Magic to slow their motion and play slower and later into the shot clock.
All that ball movement stopped, and they became reliant on Paolo Banchero -- there is really nobody else -- to create something for them or hunting a favorable matchup the Pistons were not giving.
It took the whole offense out of rhythm. And the team predictably cratered.
"I think when they turned up the heat, they went to switching, our ability to get downhill, and then when we did get downhill, our ability to finish at the rim, whether we were getting hit or not, I think they did a good job down there," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Game 6. "At the end of the day, we have to go and finish through contact. We had some good looks that didn't drop. They were able to get out on the break and get easy baskets."
Mosley said the team had some good looks but also some rushed looks as they tried to get out of the hole. The team certainly looked hesitant and pressed as the misses piled up.
Things never got this bad during the regular season, but anybody who watched this team could diagnose the symptoms that would lead to this kind of performance. The Magic's offense has stalled out like this so many times before.
But it was never like this. And never in this big of a spot. That familiar frustration cost them.
Offense betrays the defense
The Orlando Magic have won plenty of games in the last few years with an anemic offense. Nobody is surprised by the team missing shots at this point.
What changed, perhaps, this year was how much the offensive struggles began to affect the team's defensive effort.
The Orlando Magic's defense has been superb this series with the Detroit Pistons. But no defense can sustain when an offense is missing so many shots. There was no relief.
Even leading by nine points entering the fourth quarter, the Pistons did not take the lead for five minutes into the fourth quarter.
At each turn, the Magic's star players and best scorers could not stop the bleeding. It was inevitable that the defense would collapse and frustration would win. Detroit went 13 for 15 from the foul line, only accelerating Detroit's eventual takeover in this game.
For three years, this was a defense begging for an offense to make things easier. Nothing has ever been easy when it comes to this offense.
The problem has always been as much about the team's scheme and its execution of it when things get hard as it has been about faulty personnel with inconsistent outside range.
None of these problems are new or unknown. None of this was unexpected. It just gets worse in a playoff series against a Pistons defense frothing at the mouth to dig in.
"I think you've just got to find a way to get to the basket," Paolo Banchero said after Game 6. "Whether it's me, whether it's Des or whoever, just figure out a way to get a good shot. I think it is on the five guys on the court to stop the bleeding and find a way to get a basket, which we weren't able to do tonight. Game 7, we can go in there and win. That's got to be the mindset."
The Magic never found that good shot. Nothing stopped this from getting worse.
The Magic had their ticket ready to go. They gave their fans every reason to celebrate them.
Instead they reminded everyone of why they were so frustrating to begin with. They made things harder on themselves and may have sealed all of their fates by succumbing to their greatest flaw.
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