Resiliency is becoming the trademark word for this season’s Orlando Magic team.
Almost every player used the word Sunday to describe the way the Magic overcame numerous challenges while knocking off the Los Angeles Lakers 108-104 at Staples Center.
The face of that resiliency is Nikola Vucevic, and when a team has a 7-foot long-range shooter like Vooch, it certainly provides opportunity to quickly bounce back from deficits. The former USC Trojan, playing mere blocks away from where he starred as a college player, had an impressive homecoming of sorts, showing off his skills in all facets of the game as he led Orlando with 31 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists.
“Vooch killed it … killed them both times,’ ” Magic forward Aaron Gordon said, referring to Sunday’s win and last week’s 130-117 Magic victory over the Lakers at Amway Center. “It’s a tough matchup for them … and [I’m] glad we got that out of the way.”
It’s only the second time in franchise history the Magic have swept the season series with the Lakers. The win comes after a disappointing performance at Denver on Friday night to the start this five-game Western states road trip.
Couple Vucevic’s overall game with the spark Terrence Ross provided off the bench, especially in the first half, and the Magic were celebrating, although it could have been much different finish considering the way things started.
“We were bad to start obviously. The 12:30 start is all about which team is more ready. They were much more ready than we were,” Magic coach Steve Clifford said, alluding to the local tipoff time for the contest. “But we had a good response in the second quarter. … We played a great third quarter.”
The Lakers were focused early and clicking, and the Magic, were, just like at Denver, lethargic from the tip. The Magic trailed 20-8 and the Lakers had five blocked shots in the first five-and-a-half minutes, and things were looking somewhat grim for the visitors.
Enter Ross and the game slowly shifted. The Magic rallied thanks to 11 points from Ross and 15 points from Vucevic in the first half. They grabbed their first lead of the game just before halftime, although a LeBron James 3-pointer at the buzzer gave the Lakers a 52-51 lead at the break.
“Without Terrence Ross and his offense in the first half, that’s a 15-point loss,” Clifford said. “He kept us in the game when we broke the lineup in the first half all by himself.”
James was non-existent at times, but when he decided to take over, it was obvious. He hit the Magic with a pair of spin moves and finishes in the middle of the second quarter and scored seven straight points as the Lakers staved off an early Orlando rally. After that, however, Los Angeles ran into trouble.
Gordon and Jonathan Isaac had the main task of trying to stop James for most of the game, and they used nearly all the fouls they had to give trying to frustrate the world’s best player. Gordon and Isaac picked up five fouls apiece and spent some time on the bench as a result, but with the exception of that second-quarter flurry, James didn’t dominate the game.
“That’s all you can do. You’ve gotta try to make the game uncomfortable for him,” Gordon said.
James ended up with 24 points — only nine in the second half — along with seven assists and just four rebounds.
Isaac added, “I definitely made some young-guy mistakes with reaching and allowing him to penetrate, but I think for the most part me and A.G. were able to keep him at bay. … I think we did an overall solid good job of doing the best that we can with him, making him shoot tough jumpers.
“I think we did our job and that was to try and limit him as much as possible and I think we were able to do that.”
The Lakers tried to go small for portions of the second half and even had James in the five-spot on Vucevic, but Vooch wasn’t having any of that. His drive and dunk past James, after he had blocked a shot by Svi Mykhailiuk on the other end, was key to quieting the vocal Laker crowd and giving the Magic a 12-point lead late in the third quarter.
“I got going early in the game and I just wanted to keep being aggressive,” said Vucevic, the reigning NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week. “They tried to switch matchups against me and I know Coach did a great job of calling plays to get me involved in the offense and get me my sweet spots.
“I was just trying to be aggressive, play off my teammates, and whenever I got in good position, try to score. … I thought we did a great job, especially in the second half on both ends of the floor; all of us.”
The Lakers were not going to let the Magic escape that easily, however. Orlando had built a 16-point lead with 1:04 left in the third quarter, but Los Angeles fought back. A Vucevic basket with 4:23 left in the game put Orlando up 104-97, but the Lakers rattled off the next seven points — a dunk and two free throws from James and a 3-pointer from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — to tie the game two minutes later.
“They had us on the ropes there at the end. They really picked up their defense and we were struggling to do anything,” Clifford said. “T-Ross had the good drive on like a broken play, so that was the big one, then we got the stop and it was a good decision by D.J. [Augustin] to push the ball up the floor.”
Out of a timeout, James missed a jumper and the Magic were looking to work the ball when Ross saw a seam and drove the basket for an easy bucket. Caldwell-Pope missed a 3 on the next trip, and Augustin pushed the ball out to Ross who dished to Gordon for the game-finishing jam and the Magic got out of town with the victory.
“It’s a real good win; hard fought. We did enough good things at the end to win,” said Clifford, whose team is right back on the floor Monday night at Oakland to battle the defending champion Golden State Warriors, who will likely be without Steph Curry and possibly Draymond Green.
During the win over the Lakers, Gordon finished with 17 points; Ross had 16, including 4 of 7 shooting from 3-point range; Jonathon Simmons, who was critical off the bench after playing sparingly at Denver, added 10 points; and Augustin had an impressive floor game in dishing nine assists and scoring 12 points.
“That’s the only way we’re going to win games, if we move the ball and play together,” Augustin said. “One it sticks too long or start playing one-on-one, teams just load up to us and we’re not able to score. The way we played tonight is how we have to play every night.”
And as for that resiliency, Isaac agreed that it’s becoming this team’s identity.
“This team is growing in resiliency, growing in togetherness and growing in focus,” Isaac said. “And it’s huge for a team in this league to be able to go on the road steal one.”
The Magic will have to be resilient again when they face the Warriors.
“We gotta be focused, we gotta come in ready to play, execute,” Isaac said. “They’re a different ball club so just playing isn’t going to cut it. We need to do our best to limit their guys, K.D. [Kevin Durant] and Klay [Thompson] and we’ll see.
“It’s important and it’s tough because with the back-to-back we don’t have time to get in the gym and go over what they do, we gotta do it at the hotel so that kinda sets us behind the eight-ball.”
