Turnover-prone Magic
Mistake-prone Magic drop 5th straight, fall under .500 for 1st time
fall to the Indiana Pacers, 105-97 — as well as below .500 for the season.
Three weeks ago, the Orlando Magic were one of the NBA’s most pleasant surprises.
These days, they’re in freefall, with no end in sight.
Their skid accelerated Monday night.
Careless with the basketball and misfiring with their secondhalf shooting, the Magic lost to the Indiana Pacers 105-97 at Amway Center and dropped beloom. low .500 for the first time this season.
“I thought the effort was good,” swingman Evan Fournier said. “Honestly, guys, I don’t know what to tell you. We just look like a totally different team. It’s [darn] frustrating, man. There’s not much to say.”
The Magic have lost their last five games.
More difficult challenges On Wednesday, the Magic will open a four-game road trip against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Difficult away games will follow against the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers and Pacers.
“We’ve got to find a way to win,” center Nikola Vucevic said. “Obviously, every game on this trip is going to be very tough for us, starting with Minnesota.”
The challenges will continue even after the Magic return to Central Florida. They’ll face the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors at home. After that, the Magic will play a road back-to-back against the New York Knicks and Charlotte Hornets.
The Magic (8-9) struggled to protect the ball against the Pacers (10-8).
Orlando committed 22 turnovers, leading to 26 Indiana points.
No one caused more havoc than former Magic guard Victor Oladipo, who’s in his first season with the Pacers following a trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Oladipo bedeviled his former teammates, combining a game-high 29 points with nine rebounds and seven steals.
“I just went out there and played hard,” Oladipo said. “It doesn’t really matter where we’re at or who we’re playing. I just come out and play as hard as I can for as long as I can to help this team win, whatever it takes.”
Oladipo recorded his fifth, and final, assist when his teammates needed a critical boost.
The Magic had cut their fourth-quarter deficit from 11 points to 98-95 with 49.2 seconds to play. Coming out of a timeout, Oladipo drove underneath the hoop and kicked the ball to Bojan Bogdanovic on the perimeter. Bogdanovic pump-faked to prompt Elfrid Payton to fly by, took one dribble to his right and then calmly drained a 3-pointer.
Bogdanovic scored 24 of his 26 points in the second half.
And as he heated up, the Magic went ice cold.
In the first half, Orlando scored 55 points and made 51 percent of its shots.
In the second half, Orlando managed just 42 points and sank just 33 percent of its attempts.
“We’re trying,” Magic coach Frank Vogel said. “Nobody’s happy with how we’re playing, and we know we’ve got to dig ourselves out of a little bit of a rut here.”
The Magic’s point guards struggled.
Payton scored three points on 1-of-7 shooting. Although he had seven assists, he also turned the ball over four times.
D.J. Augustin, in his second game back from a hamstring injury, added 10 points on 2-of-6 shooting. He paired his four assists with five turnovers.
“They just played harder than us toward the end of the game,” Augustin said. “They got stops. We didn’t. They took care of the ball. We didn’t. They made big shots.”
Vucevic scored a teambest 25 points and gathered 13 rebounds, but he had four turnovers.
“It’s clear that we went away from what’s been working for us,” Vucevic said. “Tonight, it was the third quarter. We just lost our rhythm. We started over-dribbling. We were too stagnant and we weren’t playing with a flow. To be honest, I don’t know why, because it was working for us so well whenever we went to that.”