For March to Matter, Magic's Process Must Earn Results

ORLANDO, Fla. – The relationship between basketball and the month of March is symbolic.

"Any basketball played beyond March is high-level hoops at any level – high school, college, NBA," Jalen Suggs told locker room reporters following the Orlando Magic's loss to Golden State Thursday night. "Anything played beyond March is meaningful basketball games."

As the calendar turns Saturday, it finds the Magic in a spot where every game is meaningful. With 21 regular-season games to go, Orlando is 29-32 and eighth in the Eastern Conference, 1.5 games ahead of Atlanta in ninth and a half-game back of Miami for seventh.

Detroit occupies sixth, the final guaranteed playoff spot, and is 4.5 games up on Orlando. Fifth-place Indiana and fourth-place Milwaukee are another game ahead. But, many of the Magic's foes have games in hand over them, meaning there are more chances to improve (or worsen) their standing.

Regardless, the Magic's reality of needing to earn a return trip to the playoffs through the Play-In tournament appears more likely as days pass. Sporting a current .475 winning percentage, Orlando is on pace for just under 39 wins.

While it's not the scenario Orlando envisioned following last year's 47-win campaign, it will still press its luck with the hand its dealt.

"We're still in the hunt to play those [games] at the end of the year," Suggs said. "It's a fact. I know it for a fact. I know we're gonna be in there playing games and having a chance to go play in the playoffs. No matter what the seed looks like, all you want to do is get in.

"It is important to come out and play well, but it's also important to see the bigger picture and understand what we're working toward," Suggs said. "As long as we get in there, we've done our job and given ourselves a chance to go win a series."

For an indefinite period, however, Suggs won't be a part of the final month-and-a-half push. Following further evaluation, which included an MRI, the Magic confirmed an Orlando Sentinel report that the fourth-year guard has an injury to his trochlea in his left knee. In developing a treatment plan, the Magic will weigh multiple options, including rest, physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medicines or arthroscopic surgery to remove a loose piece of caritiage.

Suggs, who played one game between his current 14-game streak of absences because of a left quad contusion and an earlier 10-game absence with a low back strain, told reporters his quad injury was "progressing" and that he felt he was "in a good space with it" when speaking to reporters Thursday.

"I can't wait to play basketball," Suggs said at the time. "I miss that s––."

With or without Suggs, this time is one the Magic have had circled all year. Trudging through mounting injuries and lulls of play, Orlando has emphasized the desire to play its best basketball in March and April.

Perhaps, then, the most frustrating part of the Magic's inconsistency of late is that – even while not yet whole – solid stretches of basketball are starting to come more frequently.

However, they're not yet directly translating to results.

Subtracting a 40-point loss to a Cleveland team Orlando admitted it currently isn't on the level of, the other four games post-All-Star break have all shown flashes of what the Magic are striving for. What they're struggling to do is put it together for a full 48 minutes.

Particularly, the 12 minutes out of halftime haven't been kind to the Magic. In third quarters since the All-Star break, Orlando has a net rating of -4.9, which is only 20th in the league. That's down from -1.3 over the course of the entire year, which is about league average.

"I think third quarters have been tough for us the last few games," Paolo Banchero said. "We've let teams get back in the game ... so I think it's just us not being able to withstand the runs."

The second game out of the break, Orlando lost to the Memphis Grizzlies by one point. But, they'd built a lead as big as 19 points in the third quarter with a 23-4 run before surrendering a 23-7 counterattack to let Memphis back into the contest.

"That's the game right there," Cole Anthony said that evening. "We get up that much, we should be able to maintain that lead. So I think that's on us. We gave them that game."

Then, a vintage Steph Curry flurry saw him score 22 of his 56 total points in the third quarter on Thursday, helping Golden State erase a 14-point halftime deficit not even six minutes into the second half.

"He's just incredible, man," said Cory Joseph of Curry, who was his teammate in Golden State a season ago. "I got to see him do that a lot. Obviously it's not great being on this side of it."

The Warriors led by five as the game entered the fourth and never relinquished the lead, fending off multiple Magic comeback attempts.

To be clear, Golden State far and away possesses the best third-quarter net rating since dealing for Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline. Stephen Curry also isn't the opponent every other night.

But it's short lapses – sometimes six minutes, sometimes 12 – that are preventing the Magic from earning the wins their overall efforts may otherwise deserve. Instances like Thursday, when Banchero's 41 points duel Curry's 56 and Wagner supplants his teammate with an efficient 27 himself, that don't result in wins can not only affect the psyche of a team, but turn out to be significant in the standings race.

"We came out of the locker room flat and that turned out to be costly," Banchero said. "We've just got to learn from it and figure it out."

Thursday was the second time this year Banchero and Wagner combined for 68 points. The other? A six-point loss to Atlanta on Feb. 10, where the Hawks outscored the Magic 33-25 to take a one-point lead into the final 12 minutes.

Orlando can't be blamed for trying to find solace in the good moments. Doing so without substantial evidence would be one thing, but believing in a process that's producing a response is a justifiable reason to keep going. Now, it has to extract the outcomes.

"At the end of the day, our process still has to be better because we didn't win the game," Joseph said.

The Magic must refine the process it vehemently supports to find the best version of themselves in the season's final quarter.

March's importance – and whether April carries much significance – depends on it.

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