By John Denton

Jan. 3, 2017

ORLANDO – There aren’t many professions where your gaffes are singled out, rewound and repeated right in front of your co-workers on a theater-sized screen, but that’s what Orlando Magic were forced to endure on Monday morning in New York City.

When the gory autopsy follows a particularly ugly loss – as was case after a Sunday stinker in Indiana – Magic point guard Elfrid Payton sometimes wants to tug at his floppy hairdo and hide his eyes from the carnage being shown.

``It’s tough. Coach is stopping the film, rewinding it and showing you how you messed up. Then, he’s rewinding it again and again and every time he rewinds it, it looks worse, and worse and worse,’’ Payton said. ``It’s tough, but that’s our job.’’

Head coach Frank Vogel put his team on blast Monday morning in a fiery film session, and the Magic responded hours later with a resounding thrashing of the New York Knicks. The topsy-turvy chain of events over a 48-hour period – the sluggish 117-103 loss in Indiana; the no-punches-held-back film session; and the 115-103 demolition of the Knicks – created two very intriguing questions.

First, why should it take Vogel raising his voice and pinpointing video evidence of errors to coax a stronger effort out of the Magic? Secondly, did Orlando (16-20) learn enough of a lesson that it can continue the strong play on Wednesday night when it hosts Atlanta?

``We know what it takes and we know what it looks like when we play a complete basketball game on both ends,’’ Vogel said. ``Now, we’ve just got to bring it.’’

No player’s about-face from Sunday to Monday more accurately portrayed the Magic’s makeover than that of Payton, Orlando’s third-year point guard. On Sunday, he missed seven of eight shots, turned the ball over three times and got shelled defensively by Jeff Teague (12 points and nine assists) and Aaron Brooks (14 points and two assists). Payton had to watch it all again in Monday’s film session, and Vogel vehemently challenge him to respond.

Did he ever? On Monday, Payton not only tied his career high in assists (14), but he didn’t have a turnover, he pumped in 13 points and the Magic were a plus-14 in his 31 minutes on the floor. Payton’s intensity was revving so high that following one of his made baskets he turned back and screamed at a New York bench that had taunted him on a previous possession.

Vogel liked the fire that he saw from the 22-year-old point guard.

``He wasn’t very good (Sunday) night and he was very, very good (Monday) night,’’ the coach said. ``With his defensive pressure, we challenged him to bring more of that. To apply that kind of defensive pressure and go out and have 14 assists and zero turnovers and make shots, that’s a terrific, terrific performance by that young man.’’

Payton’s 14-assist performance following a rough loss was reminiscent of what took place on Dec. 10 and Dec. 13 in games against Denver and Atlanta. Following a rough shooting night against the Nuggets, Payton came back three nights later and had 26 points and 14 assists against the Hawks. Payton’s play fueled a somewhat stunning 131-120 defeat of Atlanta by Orlando.

Never one to focus too much on numbers, Payton didn’t want to take too much credit for how the Magic moved the ball last time against Atlanta (he had 14 of their 36 assists) and how they moved it on Monday (he had 14 of their 35 assists). After all, Payton was just hours removed from the fiery film session where he was often the center of attention.

``I’m just trying to make the right play as much as possible,’’ Payton said. ``I’m trying to draw two defenders as much as I can so I can find the open man. They’ve got the hard job of hitting shots.’’

The hard job now for the Magic will be playing with the same intensity and attention to detail that they did on Monday against Atlanta on Wednesday. This time around, Payton said the team can’t depend on an anger-filled rant from Vogel to motivate them and they must be self-driven.

``Now, it’s on us to hold ourselves accountable to be consistent. We’ve got to do this night-in and night-out,’’ Payton said. ``This (inconsistency) is something that’s been a problem here for the last few years. We’ve had good games, but to be consistent night-in and night-out, that’s the biggest challenge.

``When we’re playing hard and with the right mindset it just translates into better games for us,’’ he added. ``We’ve got to continue to hold ourselves accountable. It’s a long season and it’s easy to get lackadaisical and there are going to be nights when you don’t have it. But if we hold each other accountable, we can pick each other up.’’

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