Loss to the Wizards still gnawed at the Magic on Thursday

Jacque Vaughn discusses the Orlando Magic's 91-89 loss to the Washington Wizards on Dec. 10, 2014

Jacque Vaughn had to — just had to — pore over the video after he arrived home following the Orlando Magic's crushing loss Wednesday night to the Washington Wizards.

"That's a 'watch-it-when-you-get-home' [game]," Vaughn said Thursday.


"Not a lot of tossing and turning because you never go to sleep on those. So you don't toss too much. You just kind of assess what happened throughout the course of the game, where we are as a team, the good things that we did and the fact that we're still improving."

The defeat still stung the Magic on Thursday morning, when they reconvened at Amway Center for a light practice and a film-review session.


"It's a tough loss, man," guard Victor Oladipo said.

They took an 89-84 lead at home with 1:38 remaining and then collapsed.

They didn't suffer from just one breakdown, either.

They lost amid a flurry of their own mental mistakes, a pair of clutch baskets by Washington's John Wall, a pair of highly questionable calls by referees and a questionable X's-and-O's decision with eight-tenths of a second to go.

A key mental mistake occurred with the Magic ahead 89-86.

With 40.9 seconds left, Elfrid Payton stole the ball from Paul Pierce, dribbled upcourt and passed to Tobias Harris.

Harris attempted a drive and, with 20 seconds remaining on the shotclock, appeared to collide with Wall as Wall attempted to draw a charge. A referee whistled Harris for a foul even though replays appeared to indicate Wall already started to fall backward before any contact with Harris.

The dubious foul call obscured Harris' decision to attack the basket when he could have dribbled back out to the perimeter and taken time off the clock.

Wall made the Magic pay by sinking a pull-up bank shot to cut Orlando's lead to 89-88 with 32.0 seconds left.

Even then, the Magic had two more opportunities to score again.

But Oladipo missed a driving layup after he appeared to over-penetrate with 16.0 seconds to go.

Later, with the score tied 89-89, settled for a 22-foot jumper with about 3.8 seconds remaining. In retrospect, Oladipo would've been better off driving toward the hoop or waiting for more time to elapse before he shot.

Oladipo alluded to some disappointment on Thursday, saying, "I felt like I had a big part of the reason why we lost or we should've won or whatever you want to call it. So it's tough. But it's all a learning process."

His final miss set the stage for the game's climactic play.

Washington's Andre Miller had an inbounds pass with eight-tenths of a second remaining.

Magic coaches decided to position 7-foot center Dewayne Dedmon in front of Miller instead of near the hoop, where Dedmon may have been able to disrupt a pass.

After the game, Miller said he wouldn't have attempted an alley-oop pass if Dedmon had been near the basket.

But Miller did throw it to the hoop, and Bradley Beal took advantage of a Paul Pierce screen on Oladipo. Beal caught Miller's pass and laid the ball in.

On Thursday, Vaughn was asked whether he regretted not having Dedmon near the basket on that play.

"There's a number of different scenarios that can present themselves at the time," Vaughn answered. "So there's plenty of time for them to catch-and-shoot. So let's say if we have a small guarding Paul Pierce; there'd be enough time for him to catch it at 3 [-point territory], to catch it at 15 feet, to catch it at 10 feet and shoot over one of our smalls. So it wouldn't have mattered if Dedmon was at the rim or not.

"You play the percentages in a sense of maybe he's able to deflect the ball out of bounds. Maybe he alters the pass, where it isn't on-time, on-target to Beal. But because of the .8 seconds, I've been a part of games where I've seen that lob before, and a lot of scenarios can play out. You just hope you don't put yourself in a position again . . . where you're dependent on someone else's mistake, which we were."
