When the Orlando Magic's game against the New York Knicks ended last week, it felt like a pyrrhic victory.
The Orlando Magic advanced in the NBA Cup and would face the Milwaukee Bucks in the quarterfinals. All of their hard work to build a cushion to absorb a loss paid off for them. They got a chance to compete for a league-wide trophy in this conjured-up mid-season tournament.
Undoubtedly, the 121-106 loss dampened the mood. This is not how they wanted to introduce themselves to the wider NBA world—and judging by how much time TNT spent its pregame show discussing the upstart Magic, that is what the league hoped this game would be.
The final margin of defeat was nowhere near the 37-point statement the Knicks made in the third quarter. They seemingly put the Magic in their place.
The only solace was that Orlando would get another chance on the national stage by advancing.
The buzz surrounding the NBA Cup quarterfinal game should have been popping for this chance at redemption.
Instead, it feels like the Magic are limping into it. The shocking news that Franz Wagner tore his right oblique and is out indefinitely dampened some spirits and sent the Magic scrambling to figure themselves out rather than focus on trying to advance in a cup game.
This does not feel like the potential playoff preview and playoff-intense game the league hoped for from these knockout games. The Magic instead are a new team figuring their roles out again and fighting to find themselves again.
At the very least, Sunday's win over the Phoenix Suns was a confidence boost for the team trying to find its footing. But everyone will still freely admit they need time to get everything down.
"This game helped ," Caleb Houstan said after Sunday's win. "It's going to be tough. But nothing has ever really been easy. Just go out there and have fun and play to the standard."
Back to basics
The Orlando Magic are trying to stick to their basics to continue to give themselves a chance to win. That means focusing on their defense and especially chasing teams off the 3-point line.
That was one of the big reasons they were able to beat the Suns on Sunday. Phoenix averages 39.4 3-point attempts per game, but took only 28 total threes. Even though the Suns made 13 of those attempts, the limited attempts gutted their 3-point shooting attack.
Orlando did not have its best defensive game, but still only gave up 111.1 points per 100 possessions—a defensive rating that would rank 11th in the league overall. That kind of effort will get the job done on most nights.
The Magic are going to have to rally around that identity and find points in the margins—like with second-chance points (20 on 14 offensive rebounds) and points off turnovers—to win as they did against the Suns.
"We just talked about doing it by committee," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Sunday's win. "That's very important. Us getting 14 offensive rebounds is big because those are extra possessions. Especially, if you are not shooting the ball great. Our ability to crash the glass and get us the extra possession and share the ball and move and play the right way. It's a group that plays together and by committee. Going into the cup game, we just have to continue to keep our same level of focus, defend and do it by committee again."
There are bigger global concerns the Magic are trying to work through thanks to the injury to Wagner. Orlando has had to reset itself.
The magic of the Cup
But that NBA Cup game is hanging in the balance. A chance to win a trophy is only three wins away.
The magic of these single-elimination tournaments is that anything can happen in one game. That is why everyone loves the NCAA Tournament with its wild upsets of top teams from unknown schools and teams thrust into the national spotlight. It is why the FA Cup or U.S. Open Cup or the like, the soccer tournaments the league loosely based this NBA Cup on, is truly exciting.
Upsets happened throughout the group play too—the Atlanta Hawks only advanced because of an upset vitory over the Boston Celtics in their opening game and then another upset over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Magic are not entering this game thinking they are going to lose.
Sunday's game will help on that front too. It showed the team they can still win even as undermanned as they are. There is still a path to victory.
It was a confidence booster for fans as much as it was for the team. It was also a confirmation of what this team already believes about itself.
"Honestly it is not much of a confidence boost because we have guys like Cole , AB , Tristan who are ready to step up,” Jett Howard said after Sunday’s game. “We're already confident. We just now have the opportunity that came by us. I just feel like the guys we've got in this locker room, I get confident when I look at them and they get confident when they look at the team around them. I think we have guys ready for the moment."
A lot of players stepped up in Sunday's win.
Cole Anthony scored 14 points including 10 critical points in the first half to bring the Magic back into the game after spending most of the season out of the rotation. Anthony Black had eight points too. And Caleb Houstan, playing his first meaningful minutes of the season, added eight points with a pair of threes too.
The biggest lift though came from Jalen Suggs. His 14 fourth-quarter points were all vital in the win. Suggs' two three pointers in the quarter gave the Magic the lead for good and broke a 100-100 tie. Suggs stepped up with big plays.
They will need all of it to score the upset over the Bucks and advance in the tournament and win moving forward.
One of the things Franz Wagner said he hoped his team would gain from this period without him and Paolo Banchero is the confidence to play and step their games up. It will make the whole team better. If they can make the most of it.
"Not a whole lot in my NBA career have I gotten the opportunity down the stretch to be the one initiating everything, making plays, scoring, passing, really just running the offense down the stretch," Suggs said. "It was a beautiful opportunity to continue working on and applying everything that I've been working on. It's not all been beautiful. It's not all been glamorous. But it's coming together. To have something like tonight is a great feel."
That remains the caution. It will not all be beautiful for a little while. The Magic are still figuring everything out.
Sunday's game brought a lot of reasons for optimism with the team's effort level and intensity. The Magic will outperform expectations with that alone—and a home-heavy schedule leading into the new calendar year.
Does that make them ready for a game that may feel like a playoff game? Will that even matter?
This is not the showcase the Magic hoped it would be when they worked to advance in the NBA Cup. The TNT advertisements have not even had the time to omit Franz Wagner from their promos.
The Magic are rightly more concerned with figuring out how they need to play and what their new formula for victory might be than advancing in this tournament.
But they will not complain if they are able to find their way to Vegas. Other things might take priority as they plan for the rest of the season.