The Orlando Magic suffered their worst loss in franchise history on Sunday, and Desmond Bane did not mince words after the game.
The Orlando Magic suffered an ugly 52-point loss to the Toronto Raptors on Sunday, marking a franchise record margin of defeat.
The Magic could not get anything going offensively after leading by seven points early, and no player was able to reach 20 points in the 139-87 loss. Desmond Bane led the way for Orlando with 17 points, and had the most efficient shooting night of anyone on his team after going 5-10 from the field.
After the game, Bane provided his thoughts.
“I mean, it's hard to explain, hard to swallow,” Bane said. “I think anybody that watched the game knows exactly why we lost. We didn't guard anybody; turned the ball over 27 times, talked about transition defense, but it's hard to get back and get matched up when you have that many live ball turnovers, and it just snowballed.”
Before Bane took the postgame podium, Magic coach Jamahl Mosley took the blame in front of the media for not having the team prepared enough. When asked what he thought about Mosley’s comment, Bane did not have much of an answer to provide.
“I mean, I think that we understood how big of a game it was,” he said. “But, yeah, I don't have nothing for that.”
The Magic turned the ball over 28 times that resulted in 37 points for the Raptors, and Bane attributed the Magic’s struggles in taking care of possessions to being sped up by Toronto and not being able to deal with its ball pressure defense.
Additionally, Bane talked about the kind of confidence it takes for a team to be successful, noting that the Magic are currently lacking it.
“I mean, you got to walk into games understanding the challenge but always expecting to win,” Bane said. “I think that there's, like, a certain swagger that you have to have about yourself over the course of an 82-game season.
“Have that belief that, you know, whether or not you're up 20, down 20, you know, you wouldn't be able to tell by the swag and the way, the joy that we play with, and I think we've had it in stretches, but we definitely don't have it right now.”
After completing a season-best seven game winning streak earlier in March, the Magic are now just 1-7 in their last eight games and do not have the luxury of losing more given their No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference Standings.
“Trying to figure it out,” Bane said. “You know, I think that the effort’s there on our end; trying to get this thing right and understand, you know, kind of what's at stake and where we got to get to ultimately if we want to have a chance to continue to play meaningful basketball. So, guys are trying to figure it out.”
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