After every game, the X account @NBAGameReport compiles all the tracking data from the previous night’s games and projects how many points the team was projected to score based on the team and league’s averages and what they actually scored during the game.
Sometimes they do better than expected. More often than not with the Magic, they do worse than expected. Especially with open shots.
Indeed, the report from Sunday’s 105-92 loss saw the Magic far underperform their typical shooting performance. The expected points from the Magic’s shot profile tallied 118 points. They would have beaten the Jazz by 12.
Those are just numbers though. They can go up and down, oscillating around the team’s average. The question following a game like Sunday’s is really: What happened? It is not just about the numbers even if coach Jamahl Mosley likely properly bet the team missed its share of wide-open looks – indeed according to NBA.com, the Magic shot 11 for 27 (40.7 percent) on wide-open 3-pointers.
There was something more at play. Something that nobody will admit or use as an excuse.
The Magic are missing a lot. The normal ways they create shots and score are not present. And it was abundantly clear that the Magic could not find the energy to create.
For the first time since the injuries hit the team, Orlando clearly looked undermanned. And the team could not find the energy to make up for the absences with Jalen Suggs out with a back strain.
“That’s not a reason, that’s not an excuse,” coach Jamahl Mosley said. “You just have to go out and play the right way. And I think that’s a big portion of it. So regardless of what the case is -- who’s in the game, who’s not in the game -- you have to continue to play the right way. . . . We have to just sit down and guard the way we know how.”
The Magic have survived their rash of injuries to key players as much because of their identity as anything else. They play harder than everyone else and they get downhill to the basket and create extra possessions.
Orlando’s defensive numbers looked fine. Teams should be able to win when giving up 105 points. But with the Magic struggling to attack downhill and struggling to hit the 47 threes they took – just the seventh time this season Orlando has taken more than 45 3-point attempts in a game – every mistake felt bigger.
And eventually, the defense collapsed under the weight of the team’s offensive struggles. The Magic have largely avoided this all season. It finally hit them.
“We’ve said it from the beginning of the year, we don’t want to allow the offense to dictate our defense,” Mosley said. “And I think a little bit of that happened tonight. The shots were not falling. There were some wide-open, great looks, they didn’t go in. And I think you have to know that you can’t control that. But you can continue to control your effort, your energy, your line of communication with your teammates, knowing exactly what’s happening out there. They came in with some pop. That’s why they came in and took the game.”
That has been what the Magic have banked their whole season on. And that is what finally gave way in their loss to the Jazz.
But quite simply, it is hard to win when so many key players are struggling. It is hard to win when Cole Anthony is 5 for 14 and Tristan Da Silva is 3 for 11, including missing all four of his 3-pointers. Jett Howard led the team in shot attempts with 16, going 7 for 16 for a career-high 21 points. But he scored a lot of those at the end with the game decided.
The team still needs its key players to play well.
Sunday night, they just did not. The losses became too much for them to overcome and the Magic did not have an answer.
