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Magic Trying to Stay Positive and Not Get Swallowed Up by Pressure

Josh Cohen
Digital News Manager

By John Denton

Jan. 30, 2015

ORLANDO – The frustrating part, center Nikola Vucevic said over and over on Friday, is that he knows that the Orlando Magic should be better because they have been significantly better at times earlier this season.

At one time this season, Orlando impressively split six games on a grueling 10-day West Coast road trip and seemed to have designs on notching a .500 record. Just two weeks ago, the Magic did something that franchise hasn’t accomplished in almost 19 years by scoring 120 points in consecutive games while thumping the Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets.

And just days ago, Orlando played well most of Sunday night, led the Indiana Pacers by nine points and seemed poised to grab the victory that the franchise so desperately needs right now.

But each of those signs of hope has been followed by stumbles and ugly losses that threaten now to sabotage the season. Vucevic, Orlando’s leading scorer and most consistent player all season, said that the seven-game losing streak that the Magic (15-34) take into Saturday’s game against Dallas is both consuming and frustrating. He knows that it’s on the players to get the team back to playing with the energy and focus that it had early in the season when the results were much more favorable.

``Nobody enjoys the losing part of this job and it’s not always easy to deal with, but at the same time you can’t get negative or get down about it,’’ Vucevic said. ``You have to find a way to stay positive and believe that you can turn this thing around at any moment.

``The thing that really frustrates me is that I know that we have the talent and guys who can do it,’’ Vucevic continued. ``We’ve done it and shown flashes. And in practice you see what guys are capable of, but in games we don’t do it that way. That’s the most frustrating part, especially when you have been through this two seasons and now a third, but we have to stay positive and find a way to make it work.’’

Orlando is in a stretch where it has allowed its last 11 foes to score at least 100 points and dead ahead is a Mavericks team that is among the league leaders in scoring. Both ends of the floor were issues in Thursday’s 115-100 loss to Milwaukee as the Magic turned the ball over 24 times – mistakes that led to 34 Bucks points and further complicated matters defensively.

Head coach Jacque Vaughn said he thinks the pressure to succeed could be leading to players pressing. He mentioned players looking for ``10-point plays’’ after Thursday’s loss, but he vowed on Friday to continue to work toward trying to find a solution that will make the Magic more competitive. First and foremost, Vaughn is hoping that his players look past the negativity of the moment and focus on what needs to be done as a collective unit to turn things around.

``We’re faced with a lot of adversity and guys are trying to dig their way out of it. When you don’t find success, it’s challenging to your psyche,’’ Vaughn said. ``It’s no individual blame – that’s the start of it. We started this thing off together, we’ll stay together and we’ll figure it out together.’’

After two years of trying to build back the roster and develop the young talent on the team, the Magic hoped to make major strides this season toward playing more meaningful games. The Magic seemed to be on that path early on as the team showed toughness and growth in gritting out several road victories. And the recent defeats of the Bulls and Rockets while playing with a faster tempo sparked hope that Magic’s gaggle of young players were growing up and maturing.

However, the Magic have reverted back to their struggles because of alternating issues with the team’s inability to score or consistently get defensive stops. For every defeat of the Bulls and Rockets, the Magic have had ugly losses to the likes of the Knicks and Lakers. For all of the growth on the road (10 victories), the struggles at the Amway Center (five wins) have been crippling.

Tobias Harris, Orlando’s second-leading scorer, said the players are the ones who are accountable for the team’s inconsistencies. He said he is hopeful that the team can stay together as one and find a way to dig out of the hole that it is in.

``We’re the guys who are out there playing the minutes and at the end of the day we’re professional basketball players and you have to hold yourself accountable,’’ said Harris, who struggled in Thursday’s game just hours after learning of his grandfather’s death. ``I know with myself, I hold myself accountable. I can’t keep playing the way that I have been playing. Whatever the circumstances are, I have to play better basketball and that’s what I want to do.’’

Undoubtedly, a big part of the Magic’s problems is their youth and inexperience together. Orlando has eight players younger than 25 years old and two of the starters – Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton – are among the youngest players in the league at 19 and 20 years old. Also, Orlando added eight new players to the roster this season, meaning the squad has tried to build chemistry on the fly.

While he also hoped for progress this season, Vaughn said he tried to remain realistic about where the Magic are in terms of their youth, developing cohesion and the lack of a superstar player. He’s juggled the lineup several times, starting Harris and rookies Devyn Marble and Gordon at small forward, while also mixing things up at power forward with Channing Frye, Kyle O’Quinn and Dewayne Dedmon. Little of it has produced success of late, reminding Vaughn of how the team is still very much in the building phase.

``Everybody has their expectations of how good they thought we’d be, but I’m always realistic,’’ Vaughn said on Friday. ``My job is to get the most out of this group. This is the group that I have and I’m going to coach them.

``This is Year 3 (of rebuilding) for us and we still have a lot of young guys, and a lot of guys who we’ve tried to integrate into our group,’’ Vaughn continued. ``It’s a process. I don’t think anyone has a script or a timeline of what the process is. You can take a look at other organizations and see that it take a while to get everything on track and for you to be good for a long time.’’

Vucevic said the power of just one win – starting with Saturday’s game against an aging Mavericks squad that will be on the second night of a back-to-back after playing in Miami – could do wonders for the Magic’s psyche. Vucevic has become much more vocal this season as a leader as he’s evolved as a player and he’s tried to keep the team positive despite the recent swoon. He knows that the Magic have to stick together to weather these tough times.

``It doesn’t do us any good if we all get negative and getting down on ourselves,’’ the 7-foot center said. ``We have to stay together and we will.’’

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