The Orlando Magic were clinging to the hope of a comeback. They know if they can get the game to the fourth quarter, their defense will give them a chance. They need just one spark of offensive brilliance through all of their defensive determination to win a lot of games.
They were desperately searching for that spark and unable to find it. That has been a rare thing for this Magic team. Especially inside the Kia Center, they have always found it.
Instead, all the Magic found Sunday was frustration. Whether it was Jalen Brunson hitting tough threes or Josh Hart beating the team down the floor in transition after another turnover, the mistakes kept piling on.
Orlando may have an elite defense, but the offense can still hold the team back. And that offense can hold the team back especially when they let those shortcomings affect their defense. It is human nature that it would happen, but it does not sting any less.
The Magic effectively lost their cool. Just look at Jalen Suggs turning a 4-for-19 shooting performance into fouling out with four minutes left trying to be over-aggressive to create something. The Magic's defense was not creating much to keep the offense afloat.
All that was left was perhaps a bit of uncharacteristic frustration in a 100-91 loss to the New York Knicks at Kia Center, the Orlando Magic's first home loss of the season.
"Whether it's offense or defense, we've got to improve in our mental side a little bit," Moe Wagner said after Sunday's game. "This is a game of energy. I know we like to use numbers to analyze and make sense of the game. But at the end of the day, this is a game.
"When you put your energy in the right place, good stuff happens. That's just how it works. I think we have to mature a little bit as a group. This is a great opportunity for us with our two best players out. It's an opportunity to evolve in that regard."
It might be expected to have a few dud offensive nights like this one with both Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner out. Nobody will use that as an excuse. They will look at themselves completely and the moments where they lost themselves. They did not put their energy in the right place.
There were too many moments where the Magic let their poor shooting affect their defense and let their emotions get the better of them. This is an emotive team
The Magic simply could not generate enough offense to give the defense a chance, pressuring it until it snapped. And so when the team had strings of turnovers that turned quickly into New York points, the defense gave way and there was no recovery.
Orlando can afford precious few slip-ups being down so many key offensive weapons.
"We're not going to make excuses," coach Jamahl Mosley said after Sunday's loss. "Our defense did keep us in this. That was the key to it. But again, costly and timely turnovers. That second quarter got away from us and I think that was a big portion of it. But then the other side of it is we've got to make sure that we keep the right demeanor, the right approach and the right spirit within the game, even though teams are going to make runs."
Offensive struggles
It is no surprise the Orlando Magic would struggle on offense. It has been difficult for the team throughout the season.
Orlando entered the game ranked 22nd in offensive rating at 110.4 points per 100 possessions. The team has the lowest 3-point field goal percentage in the league at 30.9 percent.
The Orlando Magic finished the game shooting 42.4 percent from the floor and 9 for 30 (30.0 percent) from three. It is hard to overcome that against an elite offensive team like the Knicks.
The defense did its job. New York scored only 106.4 points per 100 possessions (the team entered the game averaging 120.2 points per 100 possessions for the season, second in the league). The Knicks turned it over 18 times and shot 45.8 percent from the floor.
But Orlando was in a severe deficit. The Magic could not get shots to fall and that magnified every mistake—every foul that put the Knicks on the line (24 for 30 from the foul line) and every turnover that turned into free points (15 Magic turnovers for 17 Knicks points).
"Today, we worried a little bit about the wrong things," guard Cory Joseph said after Sunday's loss. "That kept us from getting a good flow in the offense. I think we just have to mentally be prepared. Team understand they are coming in for a battle. We play physical, we play hard defensively. Offensively we just have to try to play together a little more, push the pace, kick aheads, try to get easy buckets. We have to make our defense generate more easy buckets.
Like it was in the loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, the game came down to small plays that had big dividends. The Knicks went on a 13-4 run where the Magic made only one of five shots and turned over three times.
That proved costly in turning a three-point game into a 12-point deficit and a 10-point halftime lead.
Orlando still got some strong offensive performances with Moe Wagner scoring a career-high 32 points on 10-for-15 shooting, making four of his seven 3-pointers. Tristan da Silva scored a career-high 20 points on 9-for-17 shooting.
But they were the only two players to score in double figures. Orlando, a team that typically lives at the foul line, took only 13 free throws with Moe Wagner taking 11 of them. Anthony Black too the other two. No starter got to the foul line even though the Magic outscored the Knicks 48-42 in the paint.
Suggs, so magnificent in the Magic's first two games without Franz Wagner, struggled to get himself going the way his team needed him to do. Suggs fouled out after scoring nine points on 4-for-19 shooting and 1-for-5 from three. He added eight assists and five rebounds, but the Magic needed the force of his scoring.
The Magic looked frustrated trying to find some offensive answers and it led to the defense slipping some, particularly early in the fourth quarter as the Knicks expanded their lead to a game-high 16 points.
"I felt like the thing that kind of got us out of our rhythm is we let our offense affect our defense," Tristan da Silva said after Sunday's loss. "It's kind of tough when the other team gets into a run and you just kind of let the one affect the other and vice versa. It just kind of happened I felt like."
A work in progress
It is a good place to remember the Magic are still a young team. They are still learning how to put together wins and navigate all the emotions of a season. They have had plenty of moments in the last two years that displayed their maturity and composure.
No one is asking them to suppress their emotions. That is part of what makes them great.
"That's still a work in progress," Moe Wagner said after Sunday's loss. "You have to control your emotions. The best players are locked in at all the time. Even if they lose control, they will be back in a couple of seconds. Obviously, we're young. It's not a bad thing. We've got to work on it. But that's our strength too. It sounds so negative because we lost. But it's good. You'd rather have people with emotions than no emotions at all and not caring about losing."
But on frustrating nights like this one where the open shots will not go in and the simple things are not easy, they still need to find the determination and grit to win.
That remains a key part of the process.