As the Magic face
the Grizzlies tonight in the middle of a slump, coach Scott Skiles does his best to keep on an even keel.
A widely held perception about Scott Skiles is he’s so intense and so competitive that he wouldn’t be able to keep an even keel when his team suffers a protracted slump.
On Sunday, however, Skiles showed a different side of himself following the Orlando Magic’s practice at Amway Center.
After his question-and-answer session with reporters, he walked toward the weight room for a workout. On his way there, he passed rookie Mario Hezonja as Hezonja launched jumpers. As Hezonja elevated, Skiles took a jab step toward him, just to see if he could throw Hezonja off his rhythm. Skiles cracked a wry smile.
It was just a brief interlude, but it showed that Skiles hasn’t lost his sense of humor despite his team losing nine of its last 10 games. There’s no question Skiles has revealed his hard-nosed personality often during this stretch, but that’s not all he’s shown. On Friday night, after the Magic led the Charlotte Hornets by 18 points in the fourth quarter but still lost, several players said one of Skiles’ messages was to not get discouraged.
“I recognize the limitations of
coaching,” Skiles said several days ago. “The coaches are there to prepare you and help you improve and try to create a team environment and try to put you in positions on the floor to have success, play to your strengths and things like that. And then the players’ job is to go out and do it. But if I flew off the handle every time we played poorly, recently that’s all I’d be doing.”
Skiles faced similar situations before during his 13 previous seasons as an NBA head coach. During the 2009-10 season, his Milwaukee Bucks endured a stretch of eight losses in nine games, another period of seven losses in eight games and yet another slump of five losses in six games.
That team fell as low as seven games under .500, and yet it still finished with a 46-36 record, qualified for the playoffs and was one win away from reaching the second round of the playoffs.
The Bucks fell to 18-25 on Jan. 26, but they steadied themselves and improved to 24-28 just before the trade deadline.
Then on Feb. 18, the day of the deadline, the team traded Joe Alexander and Hakim Warrick for swingman John Salmons, whose arrival galvanized the Bucks. In his first game, he hit a crucial 3-pointer with 16 seconds to go to clinch a victory in Auburn Hills, Mich.
Skiles called that move “probably the main thing that happened.” Midway through that season, the Bucks also signed veteran swingman Jerry Stackhouse, and his toughness positively influenced the team’s younger players.
Still, what the Bucks accomplished that season shows a team can turn itself around midseason.
Orlando will carry a 20-22 record into its road game tonight against the Memphis Grizzlies. The matchup will begin an important road trip in which the Magic also will face the Bucks on the second night of a back-to-back and will play the Boston Celtics.
The Magic’s confidence has reached a low point.
The loss to the Hornets stung — and still stings.
On Sunday, Skiles and his coaches reviewed the fourth quarter of the loss with their players.
“It’s just hard, man,” swingman Evan Fournier said. “When you get up, you feel [terrible]. You feel like you don’t want to do anything. You just want to stay at home and just think about something else. But the reality is we have a game tomorrow, and we have to do the work. So it was much needed for us to watch the tape and learn from it. But, of course, it’s not easy, especially mentally.”
Skiles hasn’t brought up his experience with the 2009-10 Bucks with the players, But when he was asked about that season Sunday, he acknowledged that year could hold some lessons for the Magic.
“Everybody knows there’s guys on this team that have had a lot of losing,” Skiles said. “It’s just the reality. There’s no reason to run from that. We had some wins. Now we’ve lost. And it’s a good time for them to learn how to respond and come back.”