Nobody said it would be easy.

As bad as things got for the Orlando Magic in Sunday’s opener of the Eastern Conference Finals, such as trailing by 20 points and never holding a lead, the home team nearly pulled out the comeback before falling to the Boston Celtics 92-88.

The close margin is of little consolation, though.

“There’s no moral victories around here,” said point guard Jameer Nelson. “If we don’t win the game, we’re not happy. We can’t be happy about coming back and almost winning.”

This clash between two defensive-minded teams produced 18 turnovers by the Magic and 16 from Boston. But it was Orlando’s lack of energy and focus that bothered coach Stan Van Gundy most.

“We got outplayed today. That’s it,” said Van Gundy. “We’ve got to find better ways offensively to attack their defense. We’ve got to quit turning the ball over and we’ve got to make some defensive adjustments.”

That’s what championship teams do. Respond to challenges, much the same way they did Sunday even as the game seemed so far out of reach.

“We definitely have to go play harder than we did today,” said Nelson.

And it shouldn’t take much to get them motivated to do so.

What Orlando has going for them is the way they’ve responded to losses throughout the season. They lost two-straight just once in early December before suffering losing streaks of four and three games during a dismal January. The Magic then went on to follow up their remaining eight losses throughout the rest of the schedule with wins the very next time out.

No wonder Boston Coach Doc Rivers expects a much improved Magic team come Game 2.

“They’ll be better Tuesday, we know that for sure,” said Rivers.

On Sunday the Magic shot just 23-percent from long distance but grabbed 15 rebounds on the offensive end to help keep them in the game.

Game 2 is scheduled for Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. at Amway Arena.

– (Contact Orlando Sports Central at JC@OrlandoSportsCentral.com) –