The Orlando Magic needed the All-Star Break to reset themselves.
They needed to get away and recuperate for the stretch run and final 26 games of the season. They had sunk in the standings into the Play-In Tournament, sitting in seventh at the All-Star Break, which is not where the team wanted to be.
Getting away gave the team a chance to return refreshed and ready for another post-break push.
That is what the Magic used last year when they climbed from eighth in the East to fifth at the end of the season. They went 17-10 after the All-Star Break last year to make that stunning climb.
The Magic are confident they can make that climb again. They took advantage of a home-heavy schedule to build some wins and took care of business (mostly) against opponents below them in the standings.
That remains Orlando's formula. The team is currently in a seven-game homestand and entered the All-Star Break with the fifth-easiest schedule by opponent win percentage.
The Magic have playoff experience and everyone knows what it takes to make a playoff push.
But urgency is still the word of the day. The Magic lose their schedule advantage quickly. Unlike last year when Orlando played 10 of 11 games at home (going 7-4 in that stretch) in early March, the team is in that critical stretch now.
There is no time to waste.
“These last 26 games are going to be tougher than the ones before the break," Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said before the team returned from its All-Star break last week. “Everybody is trying to make that playoff push. Most teams are trying to get homecourt advantage.
“We're going to get every team's best. It's going to be a playoff atmosphere every game. For us, we have to have the mentality that we're going to try to outrun everybody, play defense who we're playing and try to up our game a little bit more as well. In that time, just being focused and intentional with what we're doing.”
They do not have the same cushion to wait and build their wins, they need to win these games now. And because of where they sit in the standings, the teams around them—namely division rivals Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat—also have "easier" schedules remaining.
The Magic have no time to wait. This is the part of the schedule they must feast on.
Home cooking
The Orlando Magic are playing a stretch of 10 of 11 games at home dating back to the last three games before the All-Star Break. The Magic are two games into a seven-game homestand where they will play four of the seven games against teams with losing records (including Sunday's win over the Washington Wizards).
If the Magic are going to right the ship and make a push up the standings, it will happen in the next week before the team takes on a difficult five-game road trip that includes stops in Milwaukee, Houston and Cleveland.
More than that, considering the Orlando Magic have to make up ground on the sixth-place Detroit Pistons and have played the most games in the league to date, they must steal games to pick up wins and build a cushion on their competitors.
It only heightens the urgency of these games and this moment. The Magic need to win now and put themselves back in the race for sixth and separate themselves from the Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks for the Southeast Division lead and seventh in the East.
Entering Monday's games, the Magic had won four of their past six games, giving them a one-game lead over the Heat and a two-game lead over the Hawks. The Heat and Hawks played each other on Monday night.
The Orlando Magic though are merely keeping pace with the Detroit Pistons for sixth. The Pistons are three games ahead of the Magic for sixth and are on a six-game win streak. The Magic are not making up ground at a time when they are and need to stack wins.
The schedule will come around for everyone. The victory over the Wizards was necessary. They cannot afford to drop those kinds of games.
But that game had a major effect. For much of the season, the Magic sat and waited for the schedule to even out for them. But with one more Wizards game off their schedule, the Magic now have only the 10th easiest remaining schedule in the league by opponent win percentage.
Tuesday's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers will help drop that win percentage back down -- as will Thursday's game against the Golden State Warriors. But the Orlando Magic will then eliminate three more sub-.500 opponents off their schedule with the Toronto Raptors twice and the Chicago Bulls.
The Heat and Hawks' road
Meanwhile, the Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks play the sixth- and seventh-easiest schedules remaining. The Miami Heat still have three games left against the Washington Wizards.
More than that, the Orlando Magic have played the most games in the league with just 23 games remaining. The Heat have four games in hand and are three games behind the Magic and the Hawks have two games in hand and trail the Magic by three wins too.
Orlando's leads against both teams will shrink quickly. There is a lot that is out of the Magic's control.
On top of this, the Heat are finishing a five-game road trip on Monday and a stretch of nine of 10 on the road. They went 3-6 through the first nine games of that stretch with the game in Atlanta on Monday pending.
Miami then plays 10 of the next 11 at Kaseya Center—the same as the current stretch Orlando is in. However, unlike the Magic, only three of those opponents are under .500.
The Heat still have 18 home games remaining—the Magic have only 12 (and 11 road games). Those advantages indeed shrink.
Similarly, Atlanta started a run of 12 of 14 games at home with Orlando's 114-108 win after the All-Star Break. The Hawks have started that stretch 0-2.
They play five teams with records under .500 including the Heat in Atlanta on Monday and in Miami on Wednesday (two critical games for the Orlando Magic to watch sandwiched around big games against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors).
The point being, everyone right now is going through stretches in the schedule where they can take advantage and points where they have to start stacking wins.
By the time the Magic return home from their road trip in March, they will likely know whether they are more secure in their spot for seventh and the division crown or whether they can attack the Pistons in sixth.
The Detroit Pistons, unlike the Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat, has the 13th-hardest remaining schedule including both games against the Oklahoma City Thunder. They still have a four-game West Coast road trip and two other three-game road trips remaining.
The Magic know not to focus on any of that. That is for us to think about and worry. The Magic know their goal has to be to win the games remaining on their schedule. They can only control their results.
And so it is clear, this is the time for the Magic to start banking the wins that could power them to the postseason.
All stats and information current entering Monday's games.