One team will breathe a sigh of relief when its losing streak comes to an end as the Orlando Magic host the Indiana Pacers on Monday.
Orlando (38-32) clings to the eighth position in the Eastern Conference despite suffering four straight defeats, the last a 105-104 heartbreaker on Saturday at home to the Los Angeles Lakers.
On the same night, the Pacers (15-56) lost their 16th in a row — extending the franchise-record streak — when they went down to the San Antonio Spurs 134-119.
Both teams started their respective games poorly. The Magic fell behind 37-23 while Indiana was outscored 42-29 in its opening quarter.
The Pacers did well to keep pace with the heavily favored Spurs in the subsequent three periods, but it was always going to be difficult playing catchup in Texas.
“There’s been a pattern of this,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’ve had a lot of rough second quarters. Tonight the first quarter was obviously the one. The rest of the game was even — within two points. We just needed to have a lot more resistance in that first quarter and we just didn’t do it.”
Andrew Nembhard scored 25 points while Jarace Walker added 21, which included 5-of-7 shooting from 3-point range.
Recently acquired center Ivica Zubac missed the game with a fractured rib and will miss the rest of the season.
Indiana shot well as a team, converting better than 50% from the floor (51.8%) and above 40% from deep (45.7%) for the fourth straight outing.
Carlisle acknowledged those impressive shooting figures, while expressing concerns in other areas where the Pacers struggled.
“Those are respectable numbers,” he said. “Compared to earlier in the year, they’re better for sure. Getting outrebounded 49-26 is a big problem. Second-chance points 20-7 is a big problem. We’ve got to address that and get better there.”
After starting poorly, Orlando looked strong for long stretches against Los Angeles before ultimately coming undone by Luke Kennard’s 3-pointer with 0.6 seconds remaining.
“We’ve got to be better in the beginning part of the game,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “You can’t have lulls. It came down to those last three plays essentially. But prior to that, we gave up offensive rebounds … small things within the game caused it down the stretch.”
Orlando’s slump has come at the wrong time, but Mosley says his team needs to come to grips with it and find a way back out of it.
“You move past it — there’s no other way,” he said. “You face your reality that you didn’t get this game done. We gave ourselves the opportunity to get it done. We did not do that, so now you’ve got to go and find a way (in) the game on Monday.”
Paolo Banchero, who averages team-highs of 22.8 points and 8.5 boards, scored 16 against Los Angeles to lead seven players in double figures.
Each of the five players who came off Orlando’s bench, led by Jevon Carter and his 13 points, had positive plus/minuses on a night when all five starters were in the red.
“That’s always our job on the bench — to come on and bring energy to the game,” Carter said. “Whether we’re winning or losing, no matter how the game’s going, that’s always our job. Tonight we were able to do that, just unfortunately we weren’t able to come up with the win.”
Orlando has won its past four against Indiana, including both meetings this season.
