The Orlando Magic walked into Denver on Jan. 5, 2024, bruised and battered during their West Coast road trip. Franz Wagner had sprained his ankle the last game against the Sacramento Kings, leaving Paolo Banchero to take on almost the entire scoring load.
The Magic were down to nine healthy bodies with Wendell Carter still out with knee tendinitis and Goga Bitadze out for the game. They were throwing together lineups they had never seen and even trying two-way player Trevelin Queen in his first major minutes.
What transpired that evening was perhaps the best win of the Magic’s 2024 regular season, a stunning 122-120 victory over the Nuggets behind Banchero’s 32-10-11 triple-double. It was a sign of all this team could accomplish.
But it was just the beginning of their troubles. Illness ravaged the team throughout late January and Orlando sunk in the standings, falling to 23-22 at one point and sitting in eighth in the East.
At least they still had a fully healthy Paolo Banchero and Jalen Suggs to carry the team. That was not the case as the Nuggets rolled into Orlando on Sunday for a fairly comfortable 113-100 win.
The Magic were down to nine healthy players again, but none of the spirit and intensity they saw at Ball Arena a little more than a year earlier.
But there is also noticeably not the same frantic searching either. The team knows why it is down right now—the massive list of injuries and a team that seems to be running on fumes waiting for reinforcements. They added two more names to the injury report Tuesday morning with Cole Anthony and Jonathan Isaac listed as QUESTIONABLE with an illness.
They also know that there is recovery from this valley.
They were here last year with the exact same record, the same spot in the standings and the same deficit to make up in the standings. Despite the frustrations of the moment, the team knows it can and will recover.
“I think you have to zoom out in these circumstances understanding where you are on in the standings, where you are with what's going on with the team, helping them understand the right perspective,” coach Jamahl Mosley said after Sunday's game. “We're getting healthy bodies back soon. And so, yes, it's three [losses] in a row and I'm not making excuses, nor am I happy about it. But at the end of the day, you have to zoom out because you can't make one game pile on to 10.”
Perspective creates a path back
That perspective is important, as frustrating as it might be to walk the same path. There is no going back and correcting mistakes. The team can only look forward. Knowing they can succeed should empower them to do it again.
The Magic were 23-21 last year, losing 16 of 25 games after their nine-game win streak ended in early December. They fell to eighth in the East, 4.5 games back of the fourth-place Cavaliers and 3.5 games behind the fifth seed they would eventually finish.
Today, the Orlando Magic have lost 14 of their last 22 games and sit in seventh place at 23-21, percentage points behind the Atlanta Hawks for the Southeast Division lead (the two teams have yet to meet for their four matchups this year). They are 2.5 games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for fourth and only a half-game ahead of the Miami Heat for seventh.
There is still a lot of opportunity ahead of them. And the "easy" part of their schedule is still upcoming. Along with the promise of health with Franz Wagner marking a week since entering return to competition reconditioning.
But this is not where the Magic wanted to be. They promised to avoid losing the random games in January they lost last year. And yet here they are again, perhaps because of something beyond their control.
The important thing though is they fought back last year. There is no reason to think they cannot do it again.
“We've got a group of a lot of resilient guys,” Wendell Carter said after Sunday's game. “We've been through this before. No one wants to go through it. It's human nature having lulls and the injuries don't help either. We never want to look at it as an excuse. We have to find a way to bounce back and find our way back into the winning column.”
Last year, they went from 23-21 to 47-35. A similar 24-14 run still feels possible as this team gets healthier. The schedule is still set up for their success—the third-easiest schedule remaining in the league by opponent win percentage and by Positive Residual’s analytics.
The team believes it is better than it was last year. They have played only five games with both Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner together. Banchero has not played with Wagner since Wagner's All-Star burst in his absence.
It is hard to judge the team and its current struggles against their expectations because of all that they missed unexpectedly. Orlando has done well to keep this team at this point, as low as things feel at this moment.
Still, the team has the same record as it did last year. It is hard to find measurable growth. That is undoubtedly frustrating. Everyone hoped the Magic grew beyond needing to fight for playoff positioning at the bottom of the standings.
"I think this group understands exactly where we are at right now," Mosley said before Sunday's game. "Having our guys together for five total games says something, but having the same record says something as well. It speaks volumes about how these guys are wanting to prepare and continue to grow and get better. I think they are realizing that in this moment. "
No time to panic
Every team will go through a rough stretch—there is mild panic over the Boston Celtics' struggles over the last month and the Milwaukee Bucks started 2-8. In a long season. Everyone loses themselves for a little bit unless they are at the elite level.
The Orlando Magic know there are things the team needs to fix and clean up. It does not fix itself. But the Magic are not hitting the panic button.
For a growing team, they have taken all the injuries as an opportunity to grow and test themselves with new rotations and players stepping into new roles. They have succeeded at that throughout the season. Right now, the team is getting overwhelmed and struggling to find that rhythm.
But they have to keep fighting through it and finding themselves. Opponents and the schedule do not care who you have available.
Wendell Carter said he believes the addition of veterans like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cory Joseph have added to the collective calm the team is feeling at this moment. Even adding a veteran rookie like Tristan da Silva has helped add to the calm. Nobody seems to be blinking in the face of these struggles.
"We've seen firsthand how much things can change at the end of the season standings-wise," Anthony Black said after Sunday's game. "I think our biggest focus right now is doing what we do, trusting in the process, making sure we're getting the right shots and playing our defense. For now, we have to live with the results until the ball starts dropping and some things start going our way."
The Magic might need to play with more urgency and intensity if they can find it to start keeping up. Whatever cushion the Magic built earlier in the season, they have already lost. Now they are in a playoff chase and fight.
At least, they remain in the fight and have the confidence to rebuild.
Nobody is panicking. They have been here before. And the only way is forward.