By John DentonJan. 1, 2015
ORLANDO – The Orlando Magic hit the Amway Center parquet on Tuesday night riding a two-game winning streak and surfing the emotional wave of beating arch rival Miami a night earlier in dramatic fashion.
And all that stood between the Magic and their first three-game winning streak in 10 months was the Pistons, a woeful seven-win team that Orlando had ransacked a month earlier in suburban Detroit.
The unspoken hurdle – one that often gets glossed over when judging results at a surface level – was the NBA’s arduous, often-torturous schedule. Orlando was playing a fourth game in five nights – something 28 of 30 NBA teams have to face this season and the absolute bane of almost every player in the league. On this night, the imbalance in rest not only leveled the playing field between the Magic and the Pistons, it incredibly favored the squad that lost to Orlando by 14 points six weeks earlier.
So what happened? Orlando burst out of the gates, made seven of its first 12 shots, limited the Pistons to 33.3 percent shooting and the Magic held a promising lead after one quarter.
Then, somewhat predictably, Orlando ran face-first into the wall that often flattens many teams during the NBA’s marathon-like grind of a season. Playing its fourth game in five nights -- ``four-in-five’’ as it is disgustedly known as in NBA circles – the Magic’s energy levels fizzled like an electronic device that is short on battery.
Shots that normally fall for Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris and Ben Gordon either hit the front of the rim or missed iron completely. Nikola Vucevic, easily one of the NBA’s most dominant and consistent rebounders, failed to grab an offensive rebound for just the second time all season and his five boards tied a season low. And Orlando’s promising defensive start fell apart as the better-rested Pistons were faster to loose balls, sharper with their execution and had much more life in their legs for jump shots and putbacks in the paint.
Afterwards, many of the Magic players tried to take the ``no excuses’’ approach by angrily denying that a lack of energy from playing for a fourth time in five nights – at home against Cleveland on Friday; in Charlotte on Saturday; a travel day to Miami on Sunday; a win against the Heat in South Florida on Monday; and the home loss to Detroit after arriving back at their homes at approximately 2 A.M early Tuesday – had anything to do with the unsightly 109-86 Detroit defeat. Eventually, however, Oladipo admitted that the ``four-in-five’’ grind wore on a Magic team that was clearly running on fumes.
``I think it’s more mental than anything,’’ said Oladipo, who played a staggering 144 minutes in the four-in-five stretch and scored only three of his team-high 16 points in Tuesday’s second half. ``Your mind kind of wears down if you don’t continue to treat it. I know that might sound crazy, but your mind is like a muscle. You’ve got to work it out as much as you work out your body. A lot of this game is mental.’’
AN UGLY BYPRODUCT OF SCHEDULE – FOUR-IN-FIVE
Already owners of the NBA’s most arduous road schedule early in the season, Orlando (13-22) is in one of the most grueling stretches of the season.
After playing the four-in-five stretch, the Magic were awarded New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day off from games, although the team did practice on Thursday. They will follow that break up with another back-to-back set of games – Friday against Brooklyn and Saturday against Charlotte – for a rare home/home set on consecutive nights. It’s the first time in almost three years and just the 20th time in the Magic’s 26-year history that they will be playing home games on consecutive nights.
The part that Orlando’s players noticed, however, was that the upcoming back-to-back would put even more of a taxation on their bodies. Two more games over a 48-hour stretch for Friday and Saturday mean the Magic will have played six times in a nine-night period from the day after Christmas to the third day of 2015.
``I’m not somebody to make excuses and the next team that we’ve got, that’s the team that we’ve got to go against. But six-in-nine – that is definitely a hard stretch for us as a team,’’ admitted Harris, Orlando’s leading scorer at 18.5 points per game. ``(Tuesday) night was certainly a winnable game for us, but they just had more energy and wanted it more.’’
Often it’s the machismo and the competitive spirit talking when players mention the other team ``wanting it more,’’ but fatigue and sleep deprivation are undeniable factors in teams grinding through the NBA schedule. The number of games over short periods of time – such as back-to-backs, four-in-five night stretches and even ones like Orlando’s six-in-nine onslaught – have a big effect on the collective energy of the team and the product on the floor.
The four-in-five stretches are the ugly byproduct of an 82-game season being jammed into a 170-day calendar. After playing Friday and Saturday, Orlando will have played four four-in-five stretches – the most in the NBA so far. The good news, however, is that they are done with such endurance tests this season.
Orlando, Washington, Detroit, Golden State, Milwaukee, Portland and Denver play the most four-in-five stretches this season with four. San Antonio and Oklahoma City got big breaks by avoiding four-in-five stretches all together this season. NBA teams will play 69 stretches this season where they have four games in five nights – up from 63 times the year before. The primary reason for that 10 percent increase: The all-star break was expanded this year, while the calendar was not lengthened.
``It’s tough. At the end of the day, it’s tough, but it’s just part of NBA basketball,’’ Magic coach Jacque Vaughn said. ``Other teams go through it, but it’s just unfortunate that we’ve had the most (four-in-five stretches) in the league so far.’’
As far as back-to-backs, Orlando catches somewhat of a break by tying for the second-fewest in the league with 17. Detroit and Charlotte play the most back-to-backs with 22, while the Los Angeles Lakers play the fewest with 16.
A `NO EXCUSES’ MINDSET FOR MAGIC
Vaughn has tried to get his team to adopt a ``no excuses’’ mindset so that it doesn’t allow the schedule-makers to defeat it before ever stepping onto the floor.
The Magic’s first four-in-five stretch of the season (Nov. 11-12-14-15) saw them lose in Toronto, win in New York, rally to beat Milwaukee and then lose in the fourth game in Washington. By comparison, the Wizards had been off for two days and had played just once in six days before facing the road-weary and fatigued Magic. Quirks in the schedule tend to balance out over the long haul, but no game this season typified a ``schedule loss’’ more that unsuccessful night in Washington, D.C. for the Magic.
Four-in-five stretches are even tougher when factoring travel into the equation. NBA teams are required to be in the next city the night before the game, so that means that teams often have to travel through the night and get into their hotel rooms in the early morning hours.
Sleep specialists claim that sleep disruption is as damaging to athletes’ bodies and recovery time as sleep deprivation. Some specialists have even compared the response time to someone operating on a lack of sleep or with poor sleeping patterns over a four-day period to a person who is considered to be legally intoxicated by authorities. And in the case of NBA players, they are expected to ignore their lack of sleep or disrupted rest and play the game at its highest levels even though they could be weary from travel or exhausted from playing the night before.
``It’s very tough on the body. It’s a physically draining league, but it’s also really tough mentally as well,’’ Miami Heat superstar guard Dwyane Wade said on Monday. ``One of the toughest things about the NBA is the schedule and the number of games. There aren’t many days of rest, but every team had to go through it and you just have to do the best you can in those tough situations.’’
When asked by OrlandoMagic.com on Monday if playing four games in five nights was the bane every NBA player, Heat star forward Chris Bosh had a quick retort.
``No, it’s five-in-seven, that’s the toughest one,’’ Bosh said with a half-hearted chuckle. ``But four-in-five, it’s really tough, especially when you have road games mixed in there. Energy is always a concern. The grueling part of this league is that there are going to be lot of times when you have to play a lot of games in a short period time. It’s difficult, but that’s why we get paid to do what we do.’’
During a Dec. 2-3-5-6 stretch of games, the Magic pulled off one of their most impressive feats of the season by battling through weariness to close out a 10-day road trip in solid fashion. They lost on a buzzer-beater to the Warriors in Oakland on a Tuesday and flew overnight to L.A. where they were routed by the Clippers. After spending the night in Los Angeles to maximize recovery time – a new plan of attack implemented this season by Vaughn following back-to-back games – Orlando spent its off day flying to Salt Lake City. The Magic then thumped the Jazz on a Friday, flew to Sacramento and incredibly wrapped up the four-city, three-time-zone, 1,722-mile journey by defeating the Kings.
Vaughn’s tact throughout the taxing early-season schedule: Pour everything into that night’s game and worry about tomorrow when it arrives.
``I want to get our guys to that point and I’ve coached that way,’’ Vaughn said of keeping the focus on the task at hand. ``You take the Miami game (on Monday) and the amount of minutes that our guys played. I was only concerned about that game and not concerned about us flying home and play 24 hours later. If you don’t (focus on that night), you can bump your head on both games a little bit. At the end of the day for our guys, they only need to be concerned about that (night’s) game.’’
`I’M NOT GOING TO FEEL SORRY FOR ANYBODY’
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Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy, formerly Orlando’s coach from 2008-12, is very much a student of the game and he is known for voraciously pouring over information to pick up any advantage possible on a foe. Prior to Tuesday’s game, Van Gundy was well aware that the Magic would be playing a fourth game in five nights and he had the foresight to give his Pistons Monday off, in part, so that the starters would be ready to play big minutes against Orlando.
Back on the floor less than 24 hours after winning in Miami the night before, the Magic seemed to debunk the notion of fatigue with their strong start in the first quarter. But the turning point to the game came in the second quarter when Van Gundy preyed on the Magic’s rugged schedule.
When Orlando sought to rest Vucevic and Harris – who had played big minutes in each of the previous three games – and went to its bench with Dewayne Dedmon, Channing Frye, Evan Fournier and Ben Gordon in the second quarter, the Pistons came back with powerful center Andre Drummond.
Drummond, a possible all-star this season and a leading candidate to be the NBA’s most improved player, feasted on Orlando’s backups with four points, four rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot while playing all 12 minutes of the second period – one where Detroit outscored Orlando 34-26 to grab the lead and set the stage for the second-half rout. Drummond’s dominance inside forced Orlando to sag down and it allowed Jodie Meeks to get free for six 3-pointers in the second period alone.
Clearly, Van Gundy was taking advantage of an Orlando schedule that had the Magic playing four games … in five nights … in three different cities … and struggling to find enough energy to compete by late Tuesday night. Predictably, Orlando ran out of gas in the second half, getting outscored 55-39 over the final 24 minutes.
The NBA’s dreaded four-in-five had claimed another victim in the Magic. And Van Gundy didn’t feel one bit sorry for preying on the Magic’s weariness because he knows that every other team around the NBA would do exactly the same thing.
``They got a little bit tired, which helped us defensively in the second half. But I will tell you that I’m not going to feel sorry for anybody because we play more back-to-backs than anybody in the league, us and Charlotte,’’ Van Gundy said. ``We’ve gotten caught in it and we will be that team with four-in-five (in the future). It’s the schedule and that’s the way that it plays.’’
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