Magic aim to build on winning streak
Most valuable takeaway: Showing determination through tough times
The Orlando Magic have won two consecutive games for the first time this season, but don’t think the players are getting giddy about their recent success and patting each other on the back.
They know the NBA schedule is a grind and anything can happen — like the recent four-game losing stretch they endured. They also know, if they are being honest with themselves, the past two games could have easily gone the other way.
During back-to-back victories over the San Antonio Spurs and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Magic had double-digit third-quarter leads only to watch them evaporate, and they had to hold on to win.
“They took it to us in the third quarter and then it’s a good response in the fourth, so it’s an important win and it’s the first time we’ve won two in a row, so it’s good,” Magic coach Steve Clifford said of the victory over the Cavaliers. “Any win in this league is good. I thought in the first half, we had good readiness and we moved the ball, and in the third quarter we didn’t at all.
“We’re not going to be able to play like that. It’s frustrating.”
Aaron Gordon even called the Cavaliers game a critical situation, an interesting outlook given that it was only the 10th game of the season.
“That was a must-win game for us. We had to win that game,” Gordon said.
Losing to a struggling Cleveland team certainly would have weighed heavily on their conscience. Even needing a buzzerbeater from Evan Fournier to knock off the Cavs, who entered the game 1-8, was a bit of a letdown, but at this point the Magic will take what they can get.
They led by 26 points on the road Sunday at San Antonio and then let the Spurs back into the game and had to hold on to win by seven. They had an 11-point lead Monday on the Cavs before Cleveland rallied to take a nine-point lead by allowing just 12 third-quarter points by the Magic.
As Fournier said afterward, those kind of lapses will come back to haunt them down the road.
“That’s kind of what I told you guys [Sunday] in San Antonio. We can’t have those moments, just like