Two weeks ago, the frustrations were all about the fourth quarter.
The Orlando Magic were winning games late and grinding out wins, but often by blowing leads. Comfortable-feeling wins turned into slug fests where the Magic needed game-winning shots from Paolo Banchero or Desmond Bane to secure the victory. Nothing was easy.
That still remains a problem for a team that has a sterling clutch record. The focus at the end of games is always present. That is when everyone sees the highlights and the pressures of winning the game.
Every part of the 48 minutes leads up to those moments. And for a lot of teams, it is often just as important to start games off well.
Former Magic coach Steve Clifford used to stress how important the first quarter was. He would say i is extremely hard to win games coming from behind all the time.
This year's Magic are experiencing that firsthand. Their first quarters have been a struggle, leaving the rest of the game in the balance.
For a team struggling with consistency and struggling to find its footing, the Magic truly set the tone for their games in the first quarter. And that has been as inconsistent and poor as anything else.
For coach Jamahl Mosley, the team's consistency starts with their approach to open the game.
"I think it's a mindset," Mosley said after practice Wednesday. "You just have to say no matter what's happening around me, no matter the travel circumstances, the play, those things don't matter when your mindset is on how I have to approach this game and the minutes I'm on the floor, this is how I'm going to play."
The Magic have not seen that play out nearly often enough. Their struggles and inconsistencies start from the opening tip. You can often tell what kind of game you are getting from the Magic by those opening minutes and whether they take charge or fall behind.
It has been a problem all season feeding into other issues for the team.
Poor First Quarters
The Orlando Magic have not had good first quarters all season long.
They rank 17th in the league with a -1.7 net rating in the opening quarter. They start off with a porous 116.7 defensive rating in the opening frame.
That is certainly not how the team wants to start. It sets a poor tone for the game, allowing opponents to gain confidence and rhythm that makes it tough for the defense to track them back.
Since Franz Wagner's injury on Dec. 7, the Magic are 25th in the league with a -7.9 net rating in the first quarter, including a 118.1 defensive rating. Among the bottom 10 teams in the league in first quarter net rating, only the Golden State Warriors are also at or better than .500 in that time.
First quarters simply matter as a ton setter for the team. And that tone has consistently been poor.
"The last two [games] have not been to our standard. Nowhere near," Wendell Carter said after practice Wednesday. "We have regressed in a way, whether that is intensity, whether that is physicality, whether that is communication, we took a dip in those things. We try not to look too much in the past and thinking that's the kind of team we are. We do have to address those things and make sure they don't happen."
The Magic's two games in Europe were a great example of the risks of a poor first quarter.
The Orlando Magic trailed the Memphis Grizzlies by 39-23 after the first quarter in the game in Berlin and eventually fell behind by 21 points.
The Magic still rallied to win the game. They are 10-9 when they trail to start the second quarter -- and 11-10 when they lead after the first quarter. It is not definitive.
You cannot win a game in the first quarter, but you can certainly lose it. And that was the case in Sunday's loss in London when they trailed 40-23 and fell behind by as much as 32. It is hard to dig your way out of a hole constantly.
"It sets the tone for the rest of the game," Tristan da Silva said after shootaround Thursday. "I feel like that has been a theme in the last couple of games for us to make sure we close out the first quarter better and start off the right way. It's definitely an emphasis for us."
Looking at the last 10 games, then, Orlando has led after the first quarter in four of those games. The team is 1-3 in those games.
The first quarter alone does not solve any of the team's problems. But it sure does not hurt.
A starter's problem?
Things may still simply come down to the team's starting lineup.
The Orlando Magic are still waiting to be healthy.
Their opening night starting lineup has played only 117 minutes together in 11 games this season. It is still the sixth-best lineup in the league that has played at least 100 minutes together at a +18.0 net rating.
But the team is still 5-6 in those 11 games. When the Magic break their lineup, they run into trouble. And the lineups the Magic have had to start have struggled a bunch.
The lineup the Magic have settled on recently has been Anthony Black, Desmond Bane, Tristan da Silva, Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter (the likely lineup Thursday against the Charlotte Hornets with Franz Wagner sitting out with left ankle soreness). That group has a +3.7 net rating in 83 minutes this season.
In the first quarter as a starting lineup, however, the group has a -13.1 net rating with just a 105.5 offensive rating. That group does its work in the third quarter as the team makes up ground. Or it simply never makes up the ground at all.
The Magic's best first-quarter lineup is, predictably, that opening night starting lineup at +15.2 points per 100 possessions (132.7 offensive rating/117.6 defensive rating). It just has all the juice in the Magic's ineups.
The second-most used first quarter lineup is the starters with Tristan da Silva in for Paolo Banchero at 43 minutes. But it has a -13.5 net rating.
It has been a struggle to start the games off well.
"We've got to bring the right energy from the start," Jamahl Mosley said after shootaround Thursday. "It doesn't matter who is out there. You have to have an intensity, intent and focus level to what you are doing to start that game."
The Magic are still searching for the right lineups and combinations to start games. And that uneven start has led to so many uneven performances.