Orlando struggles across the board in loss to Hawks

By SAM GARDNER
FOXSportsFlorida.com Magic Writer

The Magic were nearly back to full strength Monday night against the Hawks after several players missed parts of three games over the weekend with a stomach virus, but Orlando’s offense still looked a little under the weather in an 80-74 loss to Atlanta.

The Magic shot 37.8 percent from the floor, including an ice-cold 4-of-22 from three-point range, and Orlando only had nine assists on 28 field goals in the loss, which dropped the Magic to 15-6 on the season.

Orlando’s starting trio of Dwight Howard (14 points and 13 rebounds), Vince Carter (18 points and eight rebounds) and Chris Duhon (seven points) combined to shoot 48.5 percent from the field, but the rest of the Magic roster hit just 12 of their 41 shots.

“We know we’re a team that can shoot the ball really well and score with the best of them, and you’re waiting … you’re like, ‘All right, this is it; this is the start of it,’ and it just didn’t go for us tonight,” Duhon said.

During Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy’s postgame press conference, the Magic head coach spotted a reporter scanning a final box score.

“Are you looking for a bright spot on there?” Van Gundy said. “Because I’ve already looked, [and] you’re not going to find it. Not tonight.”

It was one of those nights where everything went wrong for the Magic.

“As a team, we have to realize what it is we do when we play well, and we have to do those things,” Van Gundy said. “Tonight we did not do those things. We did not move the ball, we did not pass the ball to open people. we were staying on one side of the floor [and] we were forcing things. That’s not our game, or not a successful game for us, and I think our guys know that.”

Van Gundy spared no one in his evaluation of the loss – not even himself.

“I mean this sincerely, and I don’t mean to put anybody down -- because I was awful too, I couldn’t come up with anything to run or anything to get us going -- no one was good tonight,” Van Gundy said. “No one. We just weren’t.”

Sometimes a back-and-forth game between two quality teams will come down to the better team making some big plays down the stretch.

This was not one of those games.

“Even at 80-74, it wasn’t even a real hard fought game,” Van Gundy said. “It was just a bad game, and we were worse.”

The Magic actually held the Hawks to 38.8 percent shooting, but Van Gundy wasn’t impressed with either team’s defense.

“When you’ re looking at the defensive numbers, I think it’s because both teams played poorly,” Van Gundy said. “We had a few possessions defensively, but I was never thinking, ‘Wow we’re really getting after it defensively and getting some stops.’

“The numbers look good, but if you watch that game … I didn’t think – and again, I’m not trying to put them down; they won the game – I didn’t think their defense was particularly good either. I just thought it was a lousy basketball game.”

From the tip, it seemed like one of those games where the cards seemed stacked against the Magic.

Orlando was playing its fifth game in seven nights, and starting point guard Jameer Nelson was out for the third straight game with a stomach virus, but Van Gundy wasn’t using that as an excuse for the loss.

“They got Joe Johnson out; people have people out,” Van Gundy said. “That was our fifth game without Jameer [this season]. We’re capable of playing good basketball. We just didn’t play well tonight. Whatever the reasons … we just didn’t play well. We didn’t play the way we need to play.

“Our guys have done a good job of fighting through some adversity,” Van Gundy continued. “I like our team, [and] I like a lot of the things we’ve done. I’m not going to blow this out of proportion. It was one night. We’re a lot better than we showed. There’s nobody on our team that I’m unhappy with, but we were awful tonight.”

The Magic have two days off before they start a four-game west-coast swing that takes them through Portland, Utah, Los Angeles and Denver.

A couple days rest after a deflating loss should do Orlando a world of good before the next road trip.

Said small forward Quentin Richardson: “It’s one of those games in 82 that you have to chalk it up and come in tomorrow and look and see what we did wrong and get better from it before we go out west.”

Be sure to follow @FSMagic on Twitter for Magic news, analysis and more all season long!