The Orlando Magic had cut the deficit to three early in the fourth quarter. They had fought and clawed their way back into the game, digging out turnovers and surviving their own poor shooting.
None of that mattered because they had gotten back into the game. They could count the possessions and execute and escape Detroit with a win.
The problem with needing to come back so much means you have to be perfect. You cannot afford mistakes. And it only takes one thing to tip the game the other way.
It takes a lot of energy to come back from a deficit. It does not take much for that energy to dissipate.
So, as Orlando stared down a three-point deficit after rallying from 18 down late in the second quarter, the mistakes that put them in that deficit started to pile up. More than that, the Magic had to be perfect on defense. And sometimes even then it is not enough. Sometimes the other team makes shots.
The Orlando Magic can blame the final minutes of Wednesday's 105-96 loss to the Detroit Pistons on a combination of those two things.
The Magic made mistakes down the stretch, rushing shots and committing untimely turnovers. The kinds of plays they did not make in their comeback wins at home. And then The Pistons got hot, pinning smaller defenders near the basket for Tobias Harris to feast on or throwing lobs to Jalen Duren and attacking the offensive glass.
There were no heroics this time. Orlando simply ran out of time and ran out of energy to make this a win. Their luck had run out.
"I thought we did a good job fighting back," Jalen Suggs said after Wednesday's loss. "It's dope and you can look at it from a great point of view and glass half full that we are coming back and overcoming deficits. We would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the fact that we are getting down. We are putting ourselves in these holes and spotting these teams leads and then having to fight, scratch and claw to get back into the game to give ourselves a chance.
The road wall
Perhaps if the Orlando Magic were home like they were for their comeback victories over the Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, and Brooklyn Nets in the last several weeks, they would have had enough to get back and win the game.
But on the road, things are always much tougher. On the road, the team has to find its own energy. And while the Magic are plenty good at finding energy, it always takes a little more to get over the hump on the road. It is much more difficult to win coming from behind.
This is not sustainable and the team knows it.
After the Magic closed to within three points with 6:26 to play in the fourth quarter, the Magic made only 2 of their final 12 shots. The Detroit Pistons made 5 of their final 11. But that was enough to take the lead back. Orlando was the one who had to make up ground.
"We tried to speed them up, I think we had the momentum," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Wednesday's loss. "We were going back into it and then we took a couple of quick shots that we could have probably gotten a better look on. We turned it over a few times. That allowed them to get back out on the break to get some easy baskets at the rim.
Many of those shots came from the team trying to rush and push the pace. Orlando has to do that more to get into its offense faster because offense is so difficult.
Misses around the basket led to brief moments of frustration. The Pistons were the ones first to every loose ball.
On one possession, the Pistons grabbed three offensive rebounds before Tim Hardaway Jr. finally hit a floater with 3:38 to play. That made it a nine-point deficit and the fatigue from battling back finally caught up to the Magic.
They did not have one more push in them.
Stopping the deficits
The question that needs to be asked then is not about whether the Orlando Magic can come back from these deficits. They have the resolve, determination and confidence to do so.
The question is why do the Magic keep finding themselves in these giant holes to begin with?
Some of that is within their power and some of it is not.
The Orlando Magic likely could do very little about how hot the Detroit Pistons opened the game. The Pistons made 6 of 7 3-pointers in the second quarter to expand on a 10-point lead out of the first quarter.
While the 3-point shooting made the hill steeper to climb, it was the Magic's poor offense and shooting that put them behind. The Magic have the second-worst offense in the league since Dec. 7 when the team announced Franz Wagner's injury at 104.5 points per 100 possessions. Scoring has been a struggle.
Starting 8 for 21 in the first quarter (38.1 percent) and going 2 for 9 from three in the second quarter when the Pistons expanded their lead put the Magic in a deep hole. But it only became uncontrollable because Orlando turned it over seven times for nine points in the first quarter.
It always begins with the turnovers for the Magic. Just like their comeback began because they were turning the Pistons over and finally scoring on them.
Orlando had those seven turnovers early in the game but finished with only 13 for the game. The problem was Detroit scored 20 points off those turnovers. The Pistons added 14 fast break points while the Magic had only 12—on 4-for-13 shooting. Orlando left a lot of points on the board.
As the Magic tried to get over that last hill their few mistakes felt that much bigger.
And that is still the larger point and why this habit of needing comebacks is no way to sustain consistent winning.
"We have that never-give-up mentality," Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said after Wednesday's loss. "No matter if we are up or we are down. We'll continue to fight through the whole game. But for us, the biggest thing is we can't start how we've been starting. We can't be down 10-15 points in the first quarter and be fighting the whole night to get back into the game. I think that's one of our biggest flaws right now. It shows in the fourth quarter when we are not making shots or taking tired shots. We've just got to play better."
The Magic are already playing at a deficit with all the players they are missing. They are already hunting for what rotation works every night. They are already giving up so much. Their mistakes already feel heavy.
Being down by double digits and having to rally back into the game only makes it more difficult for the Magic to win. It requires they make far fewer mistakes. That is the point of maturity the team needs to find. They lacked focus and intensity against the Pistons' pressure early in the game. That forced them to adjust and recover in a significant way.
Orlando has shown it can win these games. The team has to give itself the chance to do so. And having to come back from 15-plus points every night, especially on the road, is not going to help the team get that job done.