It is easy to get wrapped up in a singular moment in a close game.
One shot that determines who wins and loses. A moment that both exemplifies how tight the margin is for success and failure but also represents how wide a gulf there is between the winners and losers.
Paolo Banchero making a game-winning shot a game after he was criticized heavily for missing one is poetic. That he took settling for a three in the dying seconds and turned it into a determined drive for a basket and a foul just fits the narrative.
The Orlando Magic’s season has had plenty of those moments so far. Desmond Bane hit the game-winner against the Portland Trail Blazers and the Utah Jazz. Paolo Banchero hit big shots in that win over the Blazers too.
Orlando is 11-6 in clutch situations this season (game within five points in the final five minutes). The team has found a way to win a lot of close games.
That is a good thing. But still something that makes the team a bit uneasy. They know they msut be better.
“You never want to look past any opponent in this league,” Wendell Carter said after shootaround Friday in Chicago. “Guys are in this league for a reason. It just shows we have to do better at putting together a 48-minute game rather than picking and choosing when we decide to play well.”
That has been part of the story too.
Uneasy fourth quarters
Coach Jamahl Mosley likes to say that a game is not decided on the final possession, as simple as it might be. Every moment of a game is important.
While the Orlando Magic have come out on top more often than not this year, they have had a lot of shaky fourth quarters to get there.
Desmond Bane’s game-winner against the Portland Trail Blazers was set up by the Orlando Magic losing a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter, with several key missed free throws. The overtime loss to the Houston Rockets featured Anthony Black missing a key free throw to give the Orlando Magic a three-point lead.
The Orlando Magic lost a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter of their back-and-forth final moments against the Denver Nuggets, which ended with Bane sinking two free throws to win the game.
The Orlando Magic had a 10-point lead with 7.5 minutes to play against the Toronto Raptors in a one-point loss.
Wednesday’s win against the Indiana Pacers had a singular moment of glory for Paolo Banchero. But getting there was a struggle.
Orlando could not pull away and lost a five-point lead with 5:49 to play. The two teams went back and forth through the final three minutes before Banchero finished the game.
“We obviously didn’t shoot it very well. That always makes it tough to go out and beat a team,” Jalen Suggs said after shootaround Friday in Chicago. “I think we were very intentional about getting into the paint and getting buckets and finishing when we got there. Down the stretch, third quarter and all of the fourth quarter, I thought we were really locked in defensively. I thought we found a way to win. We’ll shoot it better on other nights. As long as you find a way to come out on top at the end of the night, that’s all that matters.”
Orlando has played well enough to win these games. The team has pulled out wins more often than not. But the team knows it still needs to be sharper.
The Magic know that things are a bit uneasy. Embedded in their +1.5 net rating (110.5 offensive rating and 109.0 defensive rating) in clutch situations is the fact that the Magic have struggled in the fourth quarter.
Orlando has a -2.1 net rating in the fourth quarter (111.9/114.0), ranked 19th in net rating and 22nd in offensive rating. The Magic have had a lot of games that became clutch because they struggled to put teams away and close games out.
The Magic are feeling like they have relied too much on turning it on and off. The team is talented enough to get away with it. But that mindset has caught them a few times — like the loss to the San Antonio Spurs or Monday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors.
Orlando is looking for a 48-minute effort to avoid needing the heroics that create these all-or-nothing narratives.
“We have to do a better job putting together a 48-minute game,” Carter said after shootaround Friday. “We didn’t do a good job of that in the last few games. The silver lining is we’ll take a win. It’s hard to win in this league consistently. We can’t take away from the fact that we won the game, but we do have to learn from it.”
Carter said injuries have remained a piece of this puzzle too. Missing the players they have has led to some of the offense stalling out. They are missing Franz Wagner and having a consistent second attacker.
That is not an excuse. The Magic can be better.
Carter said the team must do a better job of keeping the offense from stalling out. The Magic have had a nasty habit of long stretches without scoring — thing going nearly five minutes without any points as the Raptors erased their 10-point fourth-quarter lead on Monday.
Carter said the Magic must do a better job keeping the ball moving and staying active in these moments. Orlando has done a little too much standing around.
The Magic have had plenty of big moments that can make the highlights. But the team knows it will take more to win the games they want to win. They need to avoid some of the randomness that comes late in games.
They need to finish games off.
It is good to have heroes. It is also good to be boring.