Inaugural In Season Tournament 2023-24

[Knightro]

Losing by 20 in our first IST game is a terrible look and is an indication that Mosley failed to coach up to the tournament. He was unprepared and as a result so was the team. His comments at the time downplayed the IST. It is fair to say he wasn't bought in and it cost us. You can track the evolution of his narrative over time and one theme is that the players bought in and brought him along.

Don't you think this is a little bit silly?

Like you watched the game, right? The Magic led throughout the first half of the game and it was a 2 point game going into the 4th quarter.

The game was in the balance and the Nets simply caught fire from 3PT in the final frame and the Magic's regular starting players went ice cold from the same spot.

Sometimes things like that just happen. One team makes a lot of shots and another doesn't.

There's not any sort of "THE MAGIC WEREN'T PREPARED TO PLAY AND THAT'S A DIRECT INDICTMENT ON THE COACH!" stuff at play because it's just not that deep.

Franz shot 1-6 in the 4th quarter after making 7-10 shots in the first three quarters. Is that Mosley's fault?

Franz, Paolo and Cole combined to go 0-6 from 3PT in the 4th quarter. Franz, Paolo, Cole and Suggs went a combined 2-12 from the floor in the 4th quarter.

I think you're an excellent poster all things considered, but you are one of the more egregious offenders (IMO of course) of trying to find meaning/explanation in things that just don't really have any.

[Bensational]

Going 3-1 and still not qualifying has killed any future interest I’ll have in this tournament. Point differential as the decider is just stupid.

[eyriq]

Losing by 20 in our first IST game is a terrible look and is an indication that Mosley failed to coach up to the tournament. He was unprepared and as a result so was the team. His comments at the time downplayed the IST. It is fair to say he wasn't bought in and it cost us. You can track the evolution of his narrative over time and one theme is that the players bought in and brought him along.

Don't you think this is a little bit silly?

Like you watched the game, right? The Magic led throughout the first half of the game and it was a 2 point game going into the 4th quarter.

The game was in the balance and the Nets simply caught fire from 3PT in the final frame and the Magic's regular starting players went ice cold from the same spot.

Sometimes things like that just happen. One team makes a lot of shots and another doesn't.

There's not any sort of "THE MAGIC WEREN'T PREPARED TO PLAY AND THAT'S A DIRECT INDICTMENT ON THE COACH!" stuff at play because it's just not that deep.

Franz shot 1-6 in the 4th quarter after making 7-10 shots in the first three quarters. Is that Mosley's fault?

Franz, Paolo and Cole combined to go 0-6 from 3PT in the 4th quarter. Franz, Paolo, Cole and Suggs went a combined 2-12 from the floor in the 4th quarter.

I think you're an excellent poster all things considered, but you are one of the more egregious offenders (IMO of course) of trying to find meaning/explanation in things that just don't really have any.

I recall being annoyed with his comments about the IST at the time, and having the impression that he wasn't giving the IST its due. So really I'm just continuing that line of thought.

Maybe I do over index on spurious conclusions, I'm sure I do this in game threads. And I probably do this when thinking about what the front office's motivations are.

It's hard to know what's a valid critique of a coach though. I mean as much as I appreciate what he's doing, there definitely has to be things he's not doing well, right?

[3ddman23]

Looks like it's the cavs & pistons for next week's games. Not to bad of a draw

[Knightro]

I recall being annoyed with his comments about the IST at the time, and having the impression that he wasn't giving the IST its due. So really I'm just continuing that line of thought.

Maybe I do over index on spurious conclusions, I'm sure I do this in game threads. And I probably do this when thinking about what the front office's motivations are.

It's hard to know what's a valid critique of a coach though. I mean as much as I appreciate what he's doing, there definitely has to be things he's not doing well, right?

I just feel like basketball is a lot more random than fans want to accept. Especially over a small sample like an individual game or drilled down deeper to an individual quarter of an individual game or drilled down even deeper to a handful of possessions of an individual quarter of an individual game.

On a wide enough timeline? Yeah, absolutely the cream generally rises to the top.

But the world's worst poker player can win a hand against the world's best poker player on pure randomness, ya know? But increase the sample size to 2 hands, 10 hands, 100 hands, 1000 hands and the best player will destroy the worst player.

I feel like as fans, our desire ultimately is to know why. Why did the Magic lose? Why is Paolo playing better? Why, why, why? And the reality is, since we don't actually know any of these players or coaches and what is going on in their heads and lives, we'll never truly know why.

So we decide those reasons why on our own.

But not everything is reflection on scheme or preparation or substitution patters or clock management - in fact, most things are not. Every team runs the same sets. Every team runs the same coverages.

Frank Vogel won 56 games with Indiana. A few years later he won 25 games with Orlando. A couple of years later he won the NBA title with Los Angeles.

Did he learn, forget and then re-learn how to coach in five years? Or did he simply have the talent needed to win games in two spots, but not in one spot?

Most of the time it is just as simple as "the shots went in, the shots didn't go in"

[eyriq]

I recall being annoyed with his comments about the IST at the time, and having the impression that he wasn't giving the IST its due. So really I'm just continuing that line of thought.

Maybe I do over index on spurious conclusions, I'm sure I do this in game threads. And I probably do this when thinking about what the front office's motivations are.

It's hard to know what's a valid critique of a coach though. I mean as much as I appreciate what he's doing, there definitely has to be things he's not doing well, right?

I just feel like basketball is a lot more random than fans want to accept. Especially over a small sample like an individual game or drilled down deeper to an individual quarter of an individual game or drilled down even deeper to a handful of possessions of an individual quarter of an individual game.

On a wide enough timeline? Yeah, absolutely the cream generally rises to the top.

But the world's worst poker player can win a hand against the world's best poker player on pure randomness, ya know? But increase the sample size to 2 hands, 10 hands, 100 hands, 1000 hands and the best player will destroy the worst player.

I feel like as fans, our desire ultimately is to know why. Why did the Magic lose? Why is Paolo playing better? Why, why, why? And the reality is, since we don't actually know any of these players or coaches and what is going on in their heads and lives, we'll never truly know why.

So we decide those reasons why on our own.

But not everything is reflection on scheme or preparation or substitution patters or clock management - in fact, most things are not. Every team runs the same sets. Every team runs the same coverages.

Frank Vogel won 56 games with Indiana. A few years later he won 25 games with Orlando. A couple of years later he won the NBA title with Los Angeles.

Did he learn, forget and then re-learn how to coach in five years? Or did he simply have the talent needed to win games in two spots, but not in one spot?

Most of the time it is just as simple as "the shots went in, the shots didn't go in"

Yeah, that's fair.

[Ducklett]

Cool that we got the Cavs I guess since my good friend is a cavs fan and we can watch it together, but it would have been cool to see our young guys get some serious games to get a closer to playoff atmosphere. Although the Wagner bros don't really need it after that world cup performance.

[Skin]

The tournament was good. Added fun to an otherwise mundane regular season. Point differential sucks, but teams know that going in, so it should've encouraged them to be more ruthless.

Magic outplayed my expectations, so I can't be mad. Looks like they made some great strides in getting better!