It takes a lot to get coach Jamahl Mosley heated.
He is an intense coach, constantly encouraging and yelling on the sideline. But the intensity is more focused on his team and getting them into the right spots on defense and encouraging them. He rarely directs things toward the officials.
He is all about intensity, but control. He is meant to be the force that refocuses a young and impressionable team.
But he lost it in the second quarter for the Orlando Magic.
Desmond Bane fought to get a rebound and missed a layup. He got another rebound and missed another layup with three Charlotte Hornets players surrounding him.
Jamahl Mosley went after lead official Scott Foster, picking up two technical fouls and his first ejection. The frustration had boiled over as the team struggled to fight to stay in the game against the Charlotte Hornets.
The moment did not spark the team. Shots refused to fall. The Hornets walled off the paint. And they turned every mistake not only into a basket, but a three. And Orlando made far too many mistakes, falling behind by as much as 35 points in a 130-111 defeat.
The Magic's supreme confidence during a seven-game win streak that made them look like juggernauts and the most dangerous lower-seeded team in the East has given way to the familiar frustrations and inconsistencies that have them on the Play-In treadmill again.
How will the Magic get back to the better version of themselves?
"We had some conversations about it," Desmond Bane said after Thursday's loss. "We think we just need to play more together. You see a team like that and a team like Atlanta and OKC, all those teams are sharing the ball, moving without the ball, and it's generating good things for the entire team. I think we need to lean into that a little bit more."
Momentum, confidence and cohesion can go away quickly. And the Magic are left searching for it. They have lost their connection. And everything is fraying just as it did in the rough times in December and January.
Just when it seemed like the Magic should be peaking, they are struggling to get on the same page.
Playing together more
So much of the win streak was about how well the team played together. The pieces of the puzzle fit together as they moved the ball and found open shooters. Things flowed and the Magic played with pace and confidence.
The Magic's defense was especially strong. The team was switching seamlessly. Everything was in lock step and in sync. This is how the team was supposed to look.
Between the landmark win Saturday against the Miami Heat and Monday's frustrating loss to the Atlanta Hawks, they lost that connection. Something fell out of sync, and it has been difficult to regain.
Like Monday's blowout loss (made closer by a late push from the deep bench players), the Magic looked out of step with each other. There may not have been the overt pointing and trying to push players into the right spots that was prevalent in that game. But it was the same results.
Shooters got open. Box outs were missed. The team got outworked and outhustled to 50/50 balls. They were late on rotations. Good shooters got open shots (I think I said that one already).
Since the All-Star break, the Magic have a 110.7 defensive rating. They gave up 131.3 points per 100 possessions and 22-for-46 shooting from deep. They gave up 38 points in the paint through three quarters, but that hardly mattered since they scored only 32 (the Magic ended with 42 thanks to a stronger but irrelevant fourth quarter).
It was just a complete breakdown.
"I think that when you are playing a team like that, you give them an inch and they take a mile," Bane said after Thursday's loss. "You better be extermely locked in, deiciplined on defense. They were able to get out and get some threes. Offensively, we struggled to put the ball in the basket."
Orlando did none of the things that have defined this team. The Magic put up their worst defensive showing since the break and could not find the offense to match it.
Shots affecting defense
The problem for the Orlando Magic all season has been how their shooting often affects their defense and defensive energy.
That was not a problem throughout the previous two seasons of this playoff run. The defense was a constant even with how poorly the team was shooting.
Orlando started well. They led 30-22 with 3:13 to play. But the Hornets went on a 14-2 run to take the lead heading to the second quarter.
The Hornets further extended the run in the second quarter, going on an 18-4 run leading to Mosley's ejection. In the process, Orlando gave up three 3-pointers as the offense continues to struggle. There was no rhythm and that only led to further breakdowns.
The frustration over the physicality certainly derailed the Magic and led to compounding mistakes. Mosley hoped his ejection would put attention on it. Instead, the Magic could not find momentum until the game was well over.
"I've got to be better for our group in that situation," Coach Jamahl Mosley said after Thursday's loss. "I thought we went to the basket a couple of times and didn't get a couple of calls that were very similar on the other end, and just the level of consistency in that. That's what I was fighting for our guys."
The win streak saw the team fight through those offensive struggles and grind their way through games until they could get that offensive breakthrough. That never happened in this game.
Once the Hornets started building their run, the Magic folded. That is where the disconnection speaks louder.
The question left for the Magic is: How do you get it back? It may not take much to regain, just as it did not take much to lose it. Some health would go a long way (Wendell Carter missed the game with a rib injury), but that seems elusive for this team.
Instead, Orlando finds itself in the middle of a playoff chase that is only getting tighter. And the cracks are starting to show when the team faces adversity.
The team is searching for connection and confidence once again.