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Finishing Preseason Well Important for Magic's Confidence

Josh Cohen
Digital News Manager

By John Denton
Oct. 19, 2016

ORLANDO – Icing a sore wrist in an eerily quiet locker room and sitting slump-shouldered at his dressing stall, Evan Fournier had the glazed-over facial expression of someone who was watching the same TV show for a hundredth time.

Fournier’s body language was a product of the Orlando Magic getting crushed by a Miami Heat team that played with far more energy and precision on Tuesday night. Sadly, that’s a horrifying re-run that the standout guard has seen far too many times over the past two seasons. Just when he thought that the revamped Magic were beyond those days with their offseason injections of talent and experience, Fournier and his teammates found themselves on the receiving end of another lopsided loss.

They took solace, however, in the fact that it was only a preseason game and a week remains until the wins and losses start counting for real. Eager – no, make that desperate – to see things turn around for a Magic team that has playoff aspirations, Fournier said the process of coming together and correcting flaws starts with Thursday night’s exhibition finale against the New Orleans Pelicans.

``Every game is a game that we have to play with the same focus and intensity because we have to create habits,’’ said Fournier, whose voice rose with each syllable to stress the need for a sense of urgency. ``You can’t just click – and boom! – you’re a really good team all of a sudden. We have to build habits and go back into practice and get our focus. There’s only one (preseason) game left and then the season starts.

``We’ve got to play better, period,’’ Fournier added. ``I think the last game of the preseason is going to be very important for us to end the preseason on a good note and start the regular season with more confidence.’’

Following Tuesday’s humbling 107-77 loss in Miami, Orlando (1-5) got back to work on building its confidence and stressing the principles that it will take this season to make the lopsided losses a distant memory in Wednesday’s lengthy practice. New coach Frank Vogel, whose job it is to help a Magic squad with seven newcomers and six returning players gel, was infuriated by Tuesday’s malaise and he expressed it in the postgame autopsy. On Wednesday, with a block of time and a practice to work out some of the kinks, Vogel was more encouraged that the Magic are still on the right track.

Like Fournier, the head coach stressed that the time is now for the Magic to start playing with the kind of fire and precision needed to make this season a success. Vogel told his players as much during Wednesday’s film session and practice.

``That’s an unacceptable way for us to play and we watched it and hopefully learned from it,’’ Vogel said following Wednesday’s practice. ``You’ve got to diagnose what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Guys are being held accountable. You are going to make physical mistakes or mistakes of aggression, but when you’re not executing or you’re not giving the proper effort, that has to be addressed.’’

Newcomer Serge Ibaka, one of the Magic’s most experienced players because of all his time playing big postseason games, said the squad has to bring a much better mindset to games and play much tougher – both physically and mentally.

``It’s going to take a while for us (to gel), but the mindset can still be there. Last night, we didn’t have nothing at all – no mindset, no toughness, no nothing,’’ said Ibaka, who has averaged 16.5 points and 8.8 rebounds this preseason. ``We’re concerned because if we’re not concerned now, that means we don’t care. We care about the way that we’re going to play. When you are concerned about something it makes you worry and it makes you play hard. That’s why we’re concerned.’’

The Magic have rarely had their full complement of players this preseason because of sporadic injuries to Ibaka, Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton and the resting of various veterans from game-to-game. The uncertainty caused by the differing lineups and the newness of the roster have thrown the Magic for a loop on both ends of the floor and clearly have caused confusion.

Vogel said that Gordon, who missed Tuesday’s loss with sore ankles, practiced on Wednesday. The coach said he will have the entire team available for Thursday night’s game and it will be treated with a special importance.

``I always approach the last preseason game as if it is the first regular-season game,’’ Vogel said of his philosophy. ``I’ll try to play as close to a normal rotation as we can. So that’s how I’ll approach it (on Thursday).’’

The Magic came into the preseason with plenty of questions about their offense and many of those trouble spots have come to the forefront already. In six preseason games, they rank 25th in overall offensive rating, 24th in points per game, 19th in field goal percentage and 25th in turnovers. One area where the Magic have been much better than advertised: They rank seventh in 3-point shooting at 38.7 percent.

What has been particularly troubling has been the way Orlando has been gashed on the defensive end of the floor. After acquiring the shot-blocking services of Ibaka and Biyombo and Vogel’s long history of success on that end of the floor, the Magic boldly talked of having an elite defense this season. Thus far, the numbers haven’t bared that out – 28th in defensive rating; 25th in field goal percentage allowed; 29th in 3-point field goal percentage allowed; and 21st in points allowed – but a variety of factors have gone into that as the Magic’s host of new players have been busy trying to learn one another.

``Defense takes more time than offense,’’ Fournier said. ``On offense, you can just give the ball to someone and if they have the hot hand, they can just bail you out. But defensively, it’s about team chemistry. Everybody has to be on the same page and everybody has to talk. It’s really about teamwork defensively and that’s what it is going to take for us to get there.’’

Vogel stressed on Wednesday that Orlando’s players will be held accountable for their actions and that playing time will be doled out accordingly. Big things are being expected of this team, Vogel stressed, and he’s not going to sit around and be fine with poor performances such as Tuesday’s in Miami. He wants to see a change come Thursday night at the Amway Center, one he hopes will carry over to next week’s regular-season opener.

``We have high expectations of this team and it’s not going to be one of those years, hopefully, where we have many performances like we had last night,’’ Vogel said. ``We’re not always going to play well, but we want to have a group that even when shots aren’t falling that our defense can carry us. But our defense was bad last night.

``We watched the film, we showed them the mistakes and we showed them what’s not acceptable,’’ the coach continued. ``Everything to be defined. Roles are to be defined. Minutes are still to be defined. Whatever the vision is for a team, it doesn’t always play out that way. It’s based on performance and guys have to step up.’’

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