The Orlando Magic suffered another tough loss, falling 128-92 to the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The defeat marked Orlando’s second straight loss and continued the up-and-down nature of the Magic’s season.

The game slipped away early. Orlando trailed 39-14 at the end of the first quarter, and the Thunder never looked back. While the Magic found some offensive rhythm later, they could not close the gap against Oklahoma City’s high-powered attack.

With a four-game homestand ahead, head coach Jamahl Mosley and the Magic hope to regroup and build momentum before the All-Star break as they look to reset heading into the second half of the season.

“"Yeah, it'll be great to be back home just for those four games,” Mosley said following the loss. “I think it's very important for us going into the break, but we've got to take it one game at a time. There's no easy games in this league. It's hard to win in this league, so we have to understand that and the work that we need to put in in order to take care of the home court is going to be very important one game at a time."

"Got to have them four to be honest,” Jalen Suggs added. “Got to have them all four. Again, like I said, we're talking about our process and the things we want to do in the places we want to get to. It's just a four game stretch where you want to be a good team, an elite team in this league. You go win those, you go off in the break, four game win streak and you look to carry that going into the West Coast coming out of break. So I think for us, we got to go get them. There's no ifs ands or buts about it. We ain't been home and that's been tough, but we are home now. We're about to get four straight games straight into break. So got to happen."

A major concern remains the lack of consistent intensity and effort on both ends of the floor. As the break approaches, locker-room leaders such as Jalen Suggs say the atmosphere stays positive, but the Magic need that mindset to translate into wins.

"All that jumps out of our control,” Suggs said. “So whatever happens, happens. But for us, we're just trying to get better. We still laugh. We still love each other. We still find joy in every day with our group. We just got to produce it to wins. So we never really think about that too much. I don't think anything more than any other team is time of year gets stressful for sure. You never know what goes on, but yeah, I don't think about that too much."

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