Frustration grows for Magic, who get thrashed by Raptors: ‘It’s all a collective’
· Yahoo Sports
TORONTO — The Magic made history in more ways than one during Sunday’s game against the Raptors inside Scotiabank Arena.
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First, Orlando allowed Toronto to score 31 consecutive points between the end of the first quarter and the start of the second, marking the largest run in league history since play-by-play tracking began during the 1996-97 season.
Then, by the end of the night, the Raptors captured a 139-87 victory over the Magic — a 52-point difference that represents the largest loss in Orlando franchise history. The Magic’s worst previous loss was by 47 points against the Bulls in April 2017, a 122-75 defeat.
“Gotta find ways to stop runs like that. We didn’t,” Magic forward Paolo Banchero said in the locker room. “If you want to be a good team, you can’t give up runs like that.”
Good teams also don’t lose seven of their past eight games against opponents both in front of them (Atlanta and Toronto) and way behind them (Indiana) in the standings over the final month of the regular season.
That’s where Orlando finds itself with less than two weeks remaining in a regular season that’s been nothing but inconsistent for an organization that’s searching to return to the NBA playoffs for the third consecutive year.
Sunday’s game might as well have carried the implications of a playoff game, too, due to the impact it would have on the Eastern Conference standings. Although the Magic were still in eighth entering Monday’s slate of games, the gap between them and the teams in front of them has only grown as of late.
Last Monday, Orlando also sat in eighth, but only a half-game behind Philadelphia. After the Sunday night, the No. 7 Sixers (41-33) had a two-game lead on the Magic (39-35), who lead No. 9 Miami (39-36) and No. 10 Charlotte (39-36) by just a half-game.
“Emotions are kind of high,” Magic center Wendell Carter Jr. told the Orlando Sentinel after the loss. “Guys are frustrated. … We’ll have a real, together conversation about what to do moving forward.
“We didn’t treat this one like a playoff game, which we knew it was going to be coming into it,” he added. “We’ve just gotta find a way to figure this thing out.”
So, what happened?
According to Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, blame the historic loss on him.
“I can tell you exactly what it is,” he said. “I’ve got to make sure I do a better job for this group to get them and put them in the position to know exactly what they’re going to face on a night-to-night basis, especially with the last nine games, now eight games, coming down the stretch.
“And us as a group we’ll go look at it, we’ll talk about it, we’ll make sure we practice it and make sure we get the job done knowing you’re going to see similar games coming down the stretch,” he added.
The players in the locker room felt differently about the situation.
“Well, I wouldn’t blame him,” veteran guard Jevon Carter told the Sentinel. “The players got to take on that responsibility as well. I can’t just say it was his fault that that weren’t prepared. I mean, we know Toronto.
“We know Toronto comes out and plays hard and they try to junk the game up,” he added. “So, it was like, we knew, (but) it just didn’t go well.”
To Carter’s point, Sunday’s game was the third time the teams played this season. After splitting the first pair of contests, Toronto clinched the regular-season series 2-1 over Orlando.
Both sides were missing key players Sunday, too. The Magic were without Franz Wagner, Anthony Black and Jonathan Isaac while the Raptors didn’t have leading-scorer Brandon Ingram, starting guard Immanuel Quickley and reserves Collin Murray-Boyles and Jamison Battle.
Perhaps Banchero summed up who’s at fault for the loss best when he was asked about Mosley’s post-game comments.
“It’s all a collective,” the Magic forward said.
Regardless, all of it has left Orlando without an identity, little confidence and a short amount of time to recapture both before the postseason.
The Magic notched their fewest points of the season (87) and allowed their most (139) when they fell to 0-8 scoring less than 100 points and 1-7 when giving up 130-or-more points this year.
In addition, the Magic turned the ball over 28 times (which led to 37 Toronto points), the most turnovers they’ve committed since April 13, 2011 (28 against the Pacers).
“That’s the big thing,” Desmond Bane said. “You’ve gotta walk into games understanding the challenge, but always expecting to win. There’s like a certain swagger that you have to have about yourself over the course of an 82-game season, have that belief that whether or not you’re up 20, down 20, you wouldn’t be able to tell by the swag and the joy that we play with.
“We’ve had it in stretches but we definitely don’t have it right now,” he added.
Despite that, Mosley believes his messaging still resonates with the group.
He said he thinks his message is still getting through to the team. “You get hit in the mouth by (52) points, you understand exactly what you need to do,” he said. “You’re not as bad as you think you are in your losses, and you’re not as great as you think you are in your wins.
“So, we’re somewhere in between,” he added. “We’ve got to make sure we get on the right mentality coming down to these last eight games.”
Two of the final eight come quickly. Orlando hosts Phoenix on Tuesday night and Atlanta on Wednesday night.
The Magic lost a double-overtime game to the Suns on Feb. 21 and have dropped the first three meetings of the regular season to the Hawks by an average of 10.3 points.
“We’ve got to show up ready to play,” Banchero said.
Jason Beede can be reached at [email protected]
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Magic vs. Suns
When: 7 p.m., Tuesday, Kia Center
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