WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ McCollum scored 27 points and steadied the Wizards after they nearly blew a 26-point lead as Washington held on for a 120-112 victory over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Alex Sarr added 23 points for the young and suddenly competitive Wizards, who have won five of seven. Washington, in the midst of a yearslong rebuild, began the season 3-20 but has gone 7-5 since.<\/p>\n
The Wizards’ inexperience showed after they took an 89-63 lead on Justin Champagnie’s 3-pointer in the third quarter. Orlando cut the deficit to 14 points by the end of the period and continued its rally as Washington began the fourth quarter by going 2 of 10 from the field.<\/p>\n
Goga Bitadze’s layup got the Magic within 107-105 with 5:03 left, and Orlando could sense the biggest comeback victory in franchise history. But McCollum found Sarr for an alley-oop, then followed with a midrange jumper and a 3-pointer to put Washington ahead by nine.<\/p>\n
Another 3 by McCollum made it 117-107 with 1:52 remaining.<\/p>\n
Reserve Jase Richardson led the Magic with 20 points and Desmond Bane scored 15.<\/p>\n
The Magic have not won consecutive games since winning three straight from Nov. 25-Dec. 1, before leading scorer Franz Wagner suffered a high ankle sprain that has sidelined him for the past month. Orlando still entered play leading the Southeast Division and was sixth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Orlando was missing another starter in Jalen Suggs, who suffered an MCL contusion in his right knee in a loss at Chicago on Jan. 2. Suggs has not been cleared for on-court activity, coach Jamahl Mosley said before the game.<\/p>\n
Magic: At Brooklyn on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Wizards: At Philadelphia on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ McCollum scored 27 points and steadied the Wizards after they nearly blew a 26-point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[979,7,7504,497,8414,403,875,461,2684,960,10683,59111,6,29499,29496,29494,62644,29498,72240,29495,72241,72242,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-521810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-alex-sarr","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-c-j-mccollum","11":"tag-desmond-bane","12":"tag-district-of-columbia","13":"tag-franz-wagner","14":"tag-goga-bitadze","15":"tag-jalen-suggs","16":"tag-jamahl-mosley","17":"tag-jase-richardson","18":"tag-justin-champagnie","19":"tag-magic-wizards-score","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","22":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","23":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","24":"tag-product-32547-ap-online-basketball-game-stories","25":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","26":"tag-product-40779-ap-delaware-maryland-sports-only","27":"tag-product-40780-ap-florida-sports-only","28":"tag-product-40818-ap-virginia-sports-only","29":"tag-product-40819-ap-washington-dc-sports-only","30":"tag-washington","31":"tag-washington-wizards","32":"tag-washingtonwizards","33":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}