It feels like it has been needed to be said far too much this season: The Orlando Magic's identity is based on effort. It is based on intensity. It is based on the idea that no team will work harder than its opponent every night.
This is the basis of Magic basketball. Everything for this team branches off of it.
The team's defensive philosophy is about intense physicality and keeping your man in front of you. The team's offensive philosophy is about playing quickly and getting downhill. The whole game is certainly about outworking teams for the hidden possessions -- offensive rebounds and turnovers especially
The one thing that Orlando has not done very often in the last three years was get outworked. Effort and energy defined them.
That is what has made the last month for the team so puzzling. That is what has made the entire season feel like something is a bit off.
Orlando is still in the race to accomplish its goals -- winning homecourt advantage in the Playoffs and advancing deeper into the postseason -- but this team does not feel like previous versions.
Everyone is regularly questioning the team's effort and energy. They have struggled to hit the basics of their standard.
The Orlando Magic could clearly see the power of its effort in a 120-112 loss to the Washington Wizards on Tuesday. Their effort and energy were not there until it was too late and the deficit too great.
Everyone can feel this team playing against its identity.
"I think the energy. We have to come out with the same energy we had in the fourth quarter," Jase Richardson said after Tuesday's game. "Our energy and our lack of focus were kind of disappointing. We weren't playing the way we normally play. It was frustrating. We just have to carry over that energy we had in the fourth quarter."
The starting group played with little defensive energy or attention. Their effort on offense slowly dissipated too as they fell into a deep hole.
Then in the third quarter, the Wizards hit eight of their first 11 shots and went to the line for nine free throws to expand a 12-point halftime lead to 26 in the first 7.5 minutes of the half. There was no life and no energy. Orlando was trying to keep up and were playing too sloppily and lethargic to do so.
This was not Magic basketball. And the nine-win (now 10-win) Wizards were steamrolling them.
It only took a wild rally from the hungry deep-bench players to change the tune and show what the Magic were missing.
The bench nearly saves the day
If they needed any evidence of how much effort matters, they only need to look to the fourth quarter.
Coach Jamahl Mosley pulled his lifeless starters after falling behind by 26 points and put in a lineup of Jase Richardson, Tyus Jones, Noah Penda, Jett Howard and Jonathan Isaac.
That group brought the energy and slowly whittled the lead down just as they did after another lifeless effort in the loss to the Boston Celtics earlier in the year.
They had it down to 14 by the end of the third quarter. Then they cut it all the way down to two with five minutes to play.
Mosley did not hesitate to stick with that group. They were the ones to battle back into the game. They earned the right to finish it.
"I love what they did," Mosley said after Tuesday's loss. "I love how they played. They played with intensity. They played with a sense of urgency. They played with a care factor. It wasn't perfect. But those guys came out and gave everything they had when they got their opportunity to check into the game. That's what we ask for guys to get the opportunity that you come out and play exactly the way you need to play."
The Wizards pulled away as that group, which played with only Goga Bitadze spelling Jonathan Isaac for and Jamal Cain giving Jase Richardson a quick breather for more than 11 minutes straight, started to run out of gas.
CJ McCollum found Alex Sarr for an alley-oop and then followed it with a floater and an offensive rebound leading to a three. The Wizards' starters took control.
Orlando wasted that margin for error because all it seemed to take to win this game was just a little bit of effort and energy. Effort and energy that Mosley had to go deep into his bench to find.
Orlando was sloppy with the ball throughout the game, turning it over 19 times for 29 points -- with four each from the team's three main ball handlers, Paolo Banchero, Desmond Bane and Anthony Black.
The Wizards, the No. 26 team in the league in free-throw rate, took 33 free throws in the game. The Magic simply gifted them points and were late defensively.
At every turn, the Wizards were first to the ball and playing with significantly more energy. Orlando was caught on its backfoot and backsliding the entire way.
An unfortunate pattern
This has unfortunately become the pattern and the norm.
Orlando has had far too many games where effort has been the crux of the problem. Leaving everyone to wonder: What has happened to the Magic?
They had those struggles in the surprising 120-105 loss to the Charlotte Hornets a few weeks ago. In that game, Orlando shot it poorly as the team did in Tuesday's loss before the bench came in, but also uncharacteristically gave up 19-for-39 shooting from three.
It happened too in a sluggish fourth quarter in a 120-97 loss at the Golden State Warriors. The Magic uncharacteristically committed 18 turnovers for 21 points, similar to the mistakes they made against the Wizards.
There have been slips like this happening more often. Slips in effort and attention to detail. Slips that go against what has built what little consistency and success this team has had this year.
This is an Orlando team that knows what its identity is supposed to be. It knows what its standard is supposed to be. It is consistently failing to live up to that standard.
"There is always a lesson to be learned in wins and losses," Jamahl Mosley said after Tuesday's loss. "You have to take care of the basketball, one. You've got to make your free throws when you step up there. And the ability to defend without fouling. The same things we talk about in our process every single night. We have to stick to that. And then we have to have that energy the second unit played on the back end to start the game."
Nothing will get corrected until the team holds itself accountable to that standard and plays with far more consistency and poise.
Effort is only the baseline expectation for this group. And it is failing to meet that.