{"id":216413,"date":"2026-04-02T19:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216413\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:04:07","slug":"orlando-magic-portray-inexcusable-effort-in-loss-to-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216413\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic portray ‘inexcusable’ effort in loss to Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

It happened at Charlotte<\/a> two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

It happened at Toronto<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

And it happened a third time Wednesday night against the Hawks<\/a> inside Kia Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Magic<\/a> found themselves in a competitive game early, and the moment their opponent punched back, Orlando<\/a> folded.<\/p>\n

The Magic actually led Atlanta<\/a> 28-25 at the end of the first quarter before it gave up 47 points in the second and trailed by 18 at the half en route to a 130-101 loss at home.<\/p>\n

On the road against the Hornets on March 19<\/a>, Orlando only trailed by two points after 12 minutes of action before\u00a0 Charlotte outscored the Magic 38-21 in the second quarter on its way to a 19-point win.<\/p>\n

Such a sequence occurred even sooner last Sunday against the Raptors<\/a>, who trailed by six points midway through the first quarter before going on a 31-0 run to flip the contest in their favor and hand Orlando its largest loss in franchise history (52 points)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Wednesday\u2019s loss to Atlanta came on the second night of a back-to-back at home, all three results shared a similar process that led to the same outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happened different ways in different games,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cSome of the games, the heat\u2019s been turned up so we turn it over and they\u2019re getting easy baskets. Sometimes \u2026 you go 6-for-32 from 3 so those are long shots that are leading to long rebounds, and they\u2019re out getting easy, transition baskets. (It\u2019s also been) the communication on defense, slip-outs, the communication on the pick-and-roll, (and) not being able to protect, so now we\u2019re flying around understanding who we\u2019re closing out to.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s been different things in different games, but the result is the same thing,\u201d he added. \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to continue to communicate that, talk to each other and know exactly what we\u2019re doing in those moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlando didn\u2019t shoot accurately from beyond the arc, making just 19% from distance, and allowed the Hawks to control the glass and get out in transition before any defense could get set on the other end. The Hawks outrebounded the Magic 51-37 and out outscored the Magic 25-9 on fastbreaks.<\/p>\n

Even the long-awaited return of star forward Franz Wagner<\/a> couldn\u2019t make a difference. Wagner missed six 3-pointers to finish 5-for-13 from the floor for 12 points in 20 restricted minutes in his first game since Feb. 11 due to an extended rehab of a left high ankle sprain.<\/p>\n

The result of it all? The Magic were swept by the Hawks in a four-game regular-season series for the first time since 2012-13. Orlando was also swept in a three-game regular-season series in 2020-21.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s bad all game, but there\u2019s just been stretches that are inexcusable, honestly, at this level,\u201d Wagner said when asked about Orlando\u2019s on-court effort. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to put a finger on it. I think it comes in runs, and we do a bad job of staying level-headed in those runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams see that and feel that and take advantage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Frustrations with Orlando\u2019s latest loss led to something else peculiar on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

After reporters were given clearance to enter the Magic locker room 20 minutes after the final buzzer (the timing is dictated by NBA policy), multiple players, including guard Desmond Bane, kindly requested media to leave and wait to re-enter until after the group that included more than half the roster was done talking among themselves.<\/p>\n

When asked about it upon re-entry to the locker room, Bane explained why the request was made and downplayed the seriousness of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just chopping it up,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just wanted to be able to speak freely in the locker room without others around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bane, who scored 14 points in 30 minutes of action, shared why he feels Orlando\u2019s on-court identity has been inconsistent at best throughout his first season with the Magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a level of maturity and understanding of what we do well and what we can hang our hat on,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you have something like that you\u2019re hanging your hat on, regardless of how something might be going, that\u2019s your identity and what you fall back on.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes in those runs, we can get a little chaotic and leads start to just drip,\u201d Bane added.<\/p>\n

The loss was Orlando\u2019s eighth in the past 10 games as the team continues to trend the opposite direction of avoiding the Play-In Tournament. The Magic (40-36) entered Thursday\u2019s slate of games in ninth place in the East, two games back of No. 6 Philadelphia (42-34) and only a half-game ahead of No. 10 Miami (40-37).<\/p>\n

After hearing some boos from their own fans during the third quarter of Wednesday\u2019s game, the Magic travel to Dallas for a Friday matchup against a Mavericks squad that\u2019s 2-8 in its past 10 contests.\u00a0Orlando needed a last-second dunk from Wendell Carter Jr. to defeat Dallas (24-52) by one point on March 5.<\/p>\n

While Wagner is off the team\u2019s injury report after making his return Wednesday, Anthony Black (left lateral abdominal strain) and Jonathan Isaac (left knee sprain) remain out for Friday\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

The team then heads to New Orleans on Sunday before the final two home games of the regular season next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we feel the frustration from the outside,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cTrust me when I say that we\u2019re probably more frustrated in the locker room trying to figure this out. But this is the NBA. Judgment and frustration from the fans are a part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get paid way too much money to play this game, so it\u2019s on us to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Up next \u2026<\/p>\n

Magic at Mavericks<\/p>\n

When:\u00a08:30 p.m., Friday, American Airlines Center<\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0FanDuel Sports Network Florida\/WESH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It happened at Charlotte two weeks ago. It happened at Toronto on Sunday. And it happened a third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,109,76046,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-216413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando","11":"tag-orlando-headlines","12":"tag-orlando-magic","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-social","15":"tag-social-sports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}