The Orlando Magic spent time focusing on their recent struggles to close out games during Wednesday's practice – the last session before the team heads west for a five-game-in-eight-day swing.
ORLANDO, Fla. – Of the 34 remaining regular season games and however many the postseason could bring, the Orlando Magic picture a lot of situations similar to Monday night's in Miami.
With that fresh on their minds, the Magic's Wednesday practice at the AdventHealth Training Center – the last one before a five-game West Coast swing tips off Thursday night in Portland – featured a heavy focus on alleviating their recent end-of-game woes. Using the Heat loss as an example, the Magic were up 103-91 with 6:28 to play in the fourth quarter. From there through the final buzzer after the second overtime period, the Magic shot 7-25 from the field, missed 10 of their 11 threes and had six turnovers to just four assists as their offense stalled.
The only other instance? Orlando led the same Heat team by 17 points less than seven minutes into the December 26 meeting and started the fourth quarter up 10 before Miami's late comeback win. Including that result and Monday's, the Magic have lost 12 of their last 17 games. "We're going to be in a lot of late games," the fourth-year coach said. "Us understanding what we need to do in those moments is going to be very important. I thought it was a very good practice for that."
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