<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ORLANDO - Brian Hill has been around basketball for more than 34 years. Never, he said, has he been around a team as inconsistent as this Orlando Magic squad. Make that consistently inconsistent. Three weeks ago, the Magic were in the throes of a ugly four-game losing streak, dropping all the games on their West Coast trip. They returned home and promptly strung together a five-game winning streak, beating Sacramento and Philadelphia in overtime thrillers and outlasting powerful Phoenix. But the Magic's best basketball of the season -- a stretch that had thoughts of the playoffs dancing in their heads -- has been detonated by another head-scratching, three-game losing streak. Wednesday's 106-94 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers took on a familiar feel: Orlando was flat at the start, made a desperate run to climb back into the game but ultimately was doomed by shoddy defense and inefficient offense. That roller-coaster ride has been indicative of how the season has soared and plunged for the Magic. Three times the Magic have had winning streaks of at least three games. Conversely, six different times they have lost at least three straight. Strangely enough, four times the Magic have followed up extended losing streaks by winning multiple games. "This is the first time I've ever been in a situation with streaks like this," said Hill, the Magic's head coach. "We have winning streaks followed by losing streaks. "It's hard to exactly put your finger on it. It could be losing your focus, losing your confidence, the maturity level of the team, and maybe it's coming off last year's experience and not being confident in these situations. I can't exactly put my finger on it, and really it's a learning process for all of us."</div> http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/.../602030321/1002
