No Magic solution

When a team is struggling like the Magic -- losers of eight of their last 10 games coming into Friday night's game -- a coach's first inclination is to bark and try to draw the fire out of his team himself.

Magic Coach Doc Rivers is trying a different approach.

Partly because he doesn't want to damage his team's fragile confidence and mostly because his team is still swatting at the injury bug, Rivers is being patient. It may be the most difficult thing he has done in his two-plus years of coaching.

"I think you have to be more patient," Rivers said. "I think there's a lot of reasons for your guys to have their heads spinning. They don't need me to make it spin more. I'm being firm, maybe more firm than I've ever been. But I'm also more patient, too. This [season] has been more difficult than the other two."

Forty percent of the season is finished, and the Magic are still looking for an identity. That, more than anything, is what Rivers wants from his team. The issue was addressed after the team watched film Thursday.

"It's been tough to get an identity because every time we begin to get one, someone gets injured," Rivers said. "Now, Tracy [McGrady] is back, and we have to figure out what we want to be, where want to go, how bad we want to get there."

It's T-Mac's load again

Magic all-star guard Tracy McGrady says he doesn't feel more pressure having to carry the team again this year, because he already went through that last season when Grant Hill was lost. He estimates that his lower back -- which kept him out of three games before his return Wednesday night -- is at "about 95 percent. I'm still feeling a little pain, but I'm OK."

The back injury did not affect McGrady's recent hot streak, though. He scored 31 points and made 11 of 19 shots against Indiana on Wednesday. In his last eight games coming into Friday night, McGrady had 30 or more points six times, including three 40-plus point games.

"He's going quicker to the basket," Rivers said. "Last season and even the first part of this season, he had a habit of getting the ball, holding it and dancing. The whole arena knew what he was trying to do. Now, he's getting it and going."

When it's going bad

The Magic have allowed only 93.5 points in the past four games and allowed only one team (Dallas) to score over 100 points. It represents their best stretch of defense -- as far as points allowed is concerned -- since the first four games of the season. But they have not scored 100 points in the past four games. In the past three games, they have totaled 75, 80 and 82 points. Formerly the league's highest-scoring team, the Magic have dropped to fifth in the NBA at 100.5 points per game.

Of course, their defensive woes are far from solved. In particular, the Magic must get better at keeping the opponent off the offensive glass.