The Orlando Magic are playing at a deficit.
They know and feel it every time they take the floor. Their offense is not easy. They already struggle to shoot but now they struggle to create downhill. There is nothing easy.
That is what anyone would expect missing their two best players. Paolo Banchero is inching closer to his return. Franz Wagner has started doing some light movement too. The Magic have to be patient before their two creators return.
The cost of doubling down on a defensive identity is that the offense is constantly behind. And so the Magic already start games from behind.
Just not on the scoreboard.
When the team starts a game trailing by double digits, that mountain gets even taller.
It is not unscaleable, though. The Magic erased a 25-point deficit to defeat the Miami Heat, a 15-point deficit to defeat the Boston Celtics, and a 21-point deficit to defeat the Brooklyn Nets. The Magic have proven they are resilient and can bounce back.
But that feeling of resiliency and invincibility is a house of cards. It is not sustainable to come from behind.
“I thought we did a good job fighting back,” Jalen Suggs said. “It’s dope and you can look at it from a great point of view and glass half full that we are coming back and overcoming deficits. We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the fact that we are getting down. We are putting ourselves in these holes and spotting these teams leads and then having to fight, scratch and claw to get back into the game to give ourselves a chance.”
There is that half glass full that the Magic can erase deficits and rally. They can sharpen their execution, use their defense to create offensive energy and get back into games. Orlando is never out of the game.
When the Magic fell behind by 18 points in the first half, committing seven first-quarter turnovers as the Detroit Pistons buried threes at an unreal rate, the Magic did not panic. They knew they could comeback and that with the right adjustments they would.
Orlando reduced the deficit to three points in the fourth quarter. The Magic still gave themselves a chance to win. But the energy and urgency it took to get back eventually led to their collapse.
The Magic made only two of their final 12 shots to lose 105-96. They started missing shots short and then made critical errors on defense. There was no coming back from this. Unlike those other three wins, Orlando could not get over that final hill.
“We have that never-give-up mentality,” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “No matter if we are up or we are down. We’ll continue to fight through the whole game. But for us, the biggest thing is we can’t start how we’ve been starting. We can’t be down 10-15 points in the first quarter and be fighting the whole night to get back into the game. I think that’s one of our biggest flaws right now. It shows in the fourth quarter when we are not making shots or taking tired shots. We’ve just got to play better.”
The Magic are trying to find a sustainable way to win until Banchero returns. They will need a sustainable way to win even when Banchero is back in the lineup. And part of that is starting stronger and avoiding the deficits that require the team to expend excessive energy to get back.
The comebacks have been fun. But Orlando needs to avoid them to get where they want to go.
