MINNEAPOLIS -- The Orlando Magic came into the season with such big ambitions.
They talked about them openly for the first time. Their desire to win a championship felt real. The belief they would get out of the first round felt certain. Everything felt like it was going to come together.
The season has proven much more difficult than that. Injuries have kept the team from realizing that full potential, keeping its best players from playing together long enough to draw conclusions. There has been a fair share of turmoil in the process.
Orlando finds itself in the last quarter of the season not fighting for homecourt advantage but fighting to avoid the Play-In, climbing out of a Play-In spot for the first time since Jan. 21. It should remain a tight race for the rest of the season.
In many ways, it has felt like the team has been chasing those expectations, taking big swings and falling short. In the strained baseball metaphor, the Magic might have a few home runs, but they also have struck out a lot.
And that is not getting them around the bases to score runs.
As they focus on the final 20 games of the season and try to make their climb up the standings, passing the Philadelphia 76ers with their victory on Saturday over the Minnesota Timberwolves, they are not focused on that big picture anymore.
The team is trying to focus on the little things and do the simple things to get them to the end of the season.
"It's just one game at a time and finding ways to win," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Saturday's win. "Sometimes you got to win in a close nailbiter, and sometimes you got to win by continuing to do the simple things over and over in an end-to-end win. No game is going to look the same. We have to continue to understand that as we go one game at a time down the stretch. It might be somebody different's night every night. Just keep hitting home runs on the singles and not hit home run plays. Dominate the simple is what we have to continue to do."
The Magic are doing the simple things a whole lot more. And that has helped them pick up steam and win nine of the last 13 games.
Orlando is indeed picking up steam. And there are more men on base to bring home.
Dominating the simple
Dominate the simple has been a message the Orlando Magic have been trying to internalize. This is a young, impressionable team, and they can often get out of control or try to do too much, making overzealous or aggressive plays rather than executing the simple things that build up into wins.
Orlando has found a bit of a groove by narrowing their focus. It is not about those missed expectations about focusing on what the team can do right now.
The Magic have greatly improved since the All-Star break, even accounting for some weaker competition.
Orlando is 14th in offensive rating at 114.2 points per 100 possessions and sixth in defensive rating at 106.6 points per 100 possessions. More importantly, the Magic are 6-3 in the nine games since the break. They have put together wins at a rate they have not since November.
"I think the biggest thing is to keep improving," Desmond Bane said in the locker room after Saturday's game. "You want to be going like this going into this part of the season. Coming off All-Star break, I feel like we're playing better basketball. For the most part, we are playing better and more sound on both sides of the floor. Need to continue trending in that direction."
As Bane has said repeatedly for the last few weeks, the Magic are trending in the right direction. Everything supports that.
But that is still something the team needs to carefully maintain. It can slip just as quickly as that confidence can build.
The Orlando Magic needed to rescue themselves against the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday, pulling a game out of nowhere in the dying seconds to show their resolve. They had a very different game but an equally loud statement in Saturday's game.
The most important game
None of it matters, though, if the Orlando Magic do not follow with a win Sunday in Milwaukee. They are still trying to build game-by-game.
And the most important game is the next one.
"It's important, especially now after All-Star," Wendell Carter said in the locker room after Saturday's game. "This is nitty-gritty time. These teams that are around us in the standings. We're a half a game, one game separating all of us. Every game is important at this moment. Not saying that they weren't before. But it's now or never. We've been doing a really good job of after a game like this, we move on. After tomorrow's game, we move on and continue to stack as many wins as possible."
This Magic team never lost its confidence.
Paolo Banchero told the Amazon Prime broadcast after Saturday's game that the team still believes it can make noise in the Eastern Conference if it can get fully healthy and in rhythm. That will be the challenge with so little time left in the season.
But the team cannot think about all the big-picturing things. They cannot think about what could be or might be. They cannot think about what they will do in April or May.
They have to start with the game in front of them and the challenge that presents. And then they have to beat the next challenge after that one at a time.
"It's just one game at a time," Paolo Banchero said after Saturday's game. "Can't get too high, can't get too low. Still a lot of games left and a lot of basketball to be played. Tonight was a huge win. We can't get too excited. Have to be ready to go [Sunday] against Milwaukee."