Effort, production there, but Magic still can't beat nemesis Raptors
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Before his playoff-bound team's game Friday night against the Orlando Magic, Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey was openly concerned about how loose and free his upcoming opponent had been playing in the past week.
"This is their playoffs right now," he said.
And when Victor Oladipo nailed a 3-pointer over Kyle Lowry with 13.8 seconds remaining to give the Magic a two-point lead, there was something resembling a postseason atmosphere inside the Amway Center. A victory over the Raptors, coming on the heels of defeating both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Chicago Bulls, would have sent the Magic into the upcoming long offseason confident that they are beginning to turn the corner.
Instead, they ran smack dab into a reminder that while the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers dominate the Eastern Conference playoff conversation, it's the Raptors who continue to give them fits.
"It's tough, man, really tough," Oladipo said after a 3 by Lou Williams in front of the Magic's bench with 9.3 seconds to go enabled the Raptors to pull out a 101-99 win. "There's a lot of things I want to take back from that game, a lot of things that I feel like I could have done better."
The Magic outshot the Raptors and battled them to a draw in rebounds. On top of that, they didn't fold up like a cheap tent in the fourth quarter like in their three previous meetings this season.
It still wasn't good enough.
"I thought we played hard all game," said forward Tobias Harris, one of five Magic players who finished with at least 13 points. "We put on a great effort. We battled the whole night. We shared the ball. We played well as a team."
In something of a cruel irony, the Magic's desire to play as a team might have cost them the game. When center Nikola Vucevic was caught in a mismatch against guard DeMar DeRozan after the Raptors inbounded the ball, Oladipo rushed over to try to help defending someone who had already lit up the Magic for 29 points. But DeRozan found Williams open in front of the Magic bench, and Oladipo couldn't recover quickly enough to close out on him in time.
"I probably should have just trusted Vooch," he said. "It wasn't even a matter of not trusting him. I just wanted to help. I shouldn't have gone."
Interim coach James Borrego described the Magic's fourth-quarter defense as "fantastic" and added, "I can probably think of one major breakdown in the fourth quarter." Indeed, the Raptors were only 10 of 27 in the final 12 minutes excluding Williams' back-breaker.
Oladipo and Vucevic kept the Magic afloat on offense down the stretch, with rookie Aaron Gordon and the revitalized Evan Fournier chipping in for good measure.
"We trusted each other," Borrego said. "We felt very comfortable down the stretch. We got good looks. We had them on their heels defensively."
His trust in Oladipo was never more evident than after DeRozan had given the Raptors a 98-96 lead on a driving layup.
"When your coach has trust in you and he's going to put it in your hands when it's tight, it gives you the utmost confidence," said Oladipo, who produced the game-winning shot against the Bulls as well. "He can live with the consequences."
But no one in the Magic locker room was treating the loss as a moral victory, mainly because no one on the current roster knows the feeling of an actual victory over the Raptors. The final link to the team which pulled out a win at Toronto more than three years ago was severed when Jameer Nelson was let go last summer.
"We're not giving up just because we're not in the playoffs," Harris said. "We're fighting for something. And being a young team like ourselves, that's really all you can ask for. We're bringing that mindset every game that we want to win and we're going to play hard."
They get a chance to do that in front of their fans for one last time Saturday night against the New York Knicks.
"We play again tomorrow, so I've got to have a short-term memory about it," Oladipo said of a loss which hurt just as badly as any of the 53 which preceded it.
You can follow Ken Hornack on Twitter @HornackFSFla or email him at khornack32176@gmail.com.
