Orlando Magic players and coaches confronted one test after another these last five months.
But after their season-long Dwightmare, incessant trade speculation and injuries to almost everyone on the roster, they now face a different challenge.
Can they overcome their heartbreaking 101-99 Game 4 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers?
The Magic recovered from a 19-point deficit with eight minutes left in regulation and came so close to tying the series at two games apiece. But their missed shot at the end of regulation, a questionable foul call with 2.2 seconds left in the extra period and a missed shot at the end of overtime left the Magic with a crushing defeat.
"I think we put so much into that fourth quarter and overtime, and to come away with a loss is just," shooting guard J.J. Redick said, his voice trailing off. "Man, it's disappointing."
The Magic will attempt to stave off elimination in Game 5 Tuesday night in Indianapolis.
"Going back to Indiana, we definitely don't want to be down 3-1," shooting guard Jason Richardson said. "We've just got our work cut out for us. We've got to go out there and just play for our lives now."
Only eight NBA teams have won a best-of-seven playoff series after they trailed three games to one, and it hasn't been done since the Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 2006 Western Conference playoffs.
Two of those eight teams â€" the 1967-68 Boston Celtics and the 1994-95 Houston Rockets â€" accomplished the feat by winning two of their series' final three games on the road, like the Magic will attempt to do in this series.
Magic coach Stan Van Gundy knows something about dramatic comebacks. He was an assistant coach with the 1996-97 Miami Heat when the Heat recovered from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the New York Knicks and advance to the Eastern Conference finals.
And Van Gundy said he believes his Magic players will recuperate from Saturday's painful defeat.
"It's 3-1 and it's a matter of mindset and whether you think you're still in the series or not," Van Gundy said. "Based on what they did down 19 points [Saturday] my guess is that they're not going to quit on anything, that they'll come out and play on Tuesday night damn hard and very well."
Orlando will be hard-pressed to play as well Tuesday as it did during Game 4's final 8 minutes, 26 seconds of regulation. With nothing else working, Van Gundy used an official timeout to put a small lineup of Jameer Nelson, Redick, Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu and Glen Davis on the floor.
That quintet closed out the quarter on a 26-7 run.
It could have been 28-7, but Nelson's potential game-winning fadeaway as time expired was short and to the left.
The knowledge that they had come so close to winning the game outright made the loss even harder to stomach.
"If we played like that the whole series, we might be up right now," Davis said.
"Every loose ball we were on, every rebound, every box-out, every defensive possession. I haven't felt that way since the first game. There was a sense of urgency. It was our backs against the wall, and we fought, really, really extremely hard, and that's playoff basketball. That's playoff basketball."
The Magic likely will have to generate that same energy Tuesday night in order to bring the series back to Orlando for a Game 6 Friday night.
A reporter asked Nelson if the team can reproduce that effort level.
"We want to perform better," Nelson answered.
Copyright © 2012, Orlando Sentinel
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