The Orlando Magic
Magic again look listless in lopsided loss
drop their seventh game in a row and are outhustled by the host Celtics, who prevailed 118-103 Friday night.
BOSTON — As Orlando Magic players approached tipoff on Friday, they said they needed to play with desperation and toughness against the Boston Celtics.
“We need to play at our best tonight,” center Nikola Vucevic after the Magic completed their morning shootaround. “We can't have any stretches where we don't compete on both ends.” The Magic failed. They weren’t just outplayed. They were outhustled.
The Celtics beat them to loose balls, contested almost every rebound and sprinted on nearly every play.
No wonder the Magic lost 118-103 in a game the Celtics led by as many as 32 points late in the third quarter.
“We’re giving in too much right now, and we’ve got to correct that,” Magic coach Frank Vogel said. “We’ve got to get better with that and show more toughness, more fight. I think they’re trying but not playing tough enough — not anywhere near tough enough.”
Consider what happened late in the first quarter with the Celtics already ahead 33-24. The Celtics’ Marcus Smart tossed a lob toward the hoop, and the pass ricocheted off the left side of the rim and headed toward Magic point guard D.J. Augustin.
Augustin alligatorarmed the ball, taking it for granted that the ball would settle into his left hand and he would be able to push upcourt in transition. But the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown never gave up on the play. Hustling as if the Celtics were playing in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Brown took two lightning-fast strides parallel to the baseline and snatched the ball. A few seconds later, Brown sank a 3-pointer from the left corner, sending the announced crowd of 18,624 inside TD Garden into a frenzy.
That sequence was emblematic of the Magic’s collective failure. The team entered Friday’s game mired in a six-game losing streak and should have raised its effort. Instead, most Magic players sleepwalked through the first half and committed defensive miscue after defensive miscue even though the Celtics had the NBA’s best record.
The Magic (8-11) didn’t compete on defense. They didn’t fight through screens, and the Celtics (17-3) took open jumper after open jumper.
“We played it like it was just another game,” forward Aaron Gordon said. “We didn’t play like they were the first in the East and we were on a losing streak.”
Boston point guard Kyrie Irving scored a game-high 30 points in 25 minutes. But Boston bench players Terry Rozier and Aron Baynes also outshone almost everyone on Orlando’s roster.
The Celtics scored 73 first-half points, the highest point total allowed by the Magic in any half this season.
Vogel tried to send a message from that point forward.
During the third quarter, Vogel subbed out players who committed defensive breakdowns, including Gordon with 8:01 remaining in the period.
The defeat extended Orlando’s losing streak to seven games — a streak that includes a 125-85 loss at home on Nov. 18 to the injury-depleted and poorly rested Utah Jazz. That defeat should have embarrassed the Magic. But on Friday against the Celtics, the Magic played with just as little resilience as they displayed against the Jazz.
Asked where the Magic’s intensity and desperation were during the first half, swingman Evan Fournier took a long sigh and answered, “I don’t know, man. It’s obviously a rough patch for us. We’re playing really, really bad. There’s no other way to say it. We were late defensively again on the help [and] just one-on-one containment. That was obviously not good enough. It’s always the same thing. So there’s not much to say, honestly.”
Asked how the Magic turn things around, Fournier answered, “I don’t know, but we’ve got to find a way. It’s got to be all 15 of us. That’s the only thing I know.”
Vogel has tried to remain positive with his players, telling them that they have plenty of the season remaining to turn things around.
So far, Vogel has resisted making lineup changes.
He may have to do so now.
The way the Magic played Friday night, without heart and without hustle, what does Vogel have to lose?