Exits: The prospect of drifting

The Magic shocked Detroit, then seemed shocked by their brief revival and elimination. Do athletes get to hold loss in their bodies?

I take back everything I said about the Magic being depressed, was the joke I made all throughout Orlando’s series.

The joke being (never good to need to explain a joke, I know) that this was the same team I talked about being a speedy exit in light of their end-of-season listlessness, all the oomph they couldn’t summon to get head and shoulders above the curling rip current of the Eastern Conference’s bottom standings. The Magic just didn’t seem to want to play basketball anymore, let alone win. The prospect of having to win to extend their season — given injuries, given the slippery shape of the East, given the open-ended stretch of time in front of them when everything behind already felt so effortful — loomed like a last hill in the distance, one they did not seem equipped to climb.

But then, Orlando won their first game against Detroit, in Detroit, bringing the sort of stifling silence down on a fanbase’s head that threatens to smother a whole season’s worth of confidence. Less was made about the Magic than the Pistons. These were the number one seeds in the East, and this was how they showed up against an eighth place opponent?

It was the Magic that brought doubt out in Detroit. The Magic that likely woke some of the Pistons roster up in the night, kept them up, their minds reeling in their own beds and then in some hotel room on the road. The Magic that won gutty and gritty, the way the Pistons were supposed to. The Magic that controlled the pace and rattled Cunningham’s rhythm, inverting his hypnotic, herky-jerky handle.

Watching, it was clear the rekindled will that coursed through the roster banished what had become unsteady, unsure, decidedly low about the team. Revived through competition, isn’t this the best-case scenario for any playoff series?

It wasn’t the Magic that were depressed — it was me.