{"id":560752,"date":"2026-01-25T23:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/560752\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T23:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:20:15","slug":"orlando-magic-falter-at-home-again-head-back-on-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/560752\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic falter at home again, head back on road"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trailing the Cavaliers<\/a> by nine points with less than 30 seconds remaining in the third quarter of Saturday\u2019s game at Kia Center<\/a>, the Magic<\/a> defense collapsed in on a driving Donovan Mitchell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Moe Wagner in front of him and Paolo Banchero<\/a> by his side, the Cleveland<\/a> guard kicked the ball out to a waiting Thomas Bryant.<\/p>\n

The veteran center corralled the ball, got his feet set and pulled up from the right corner with Jalen Suggs<\/a> closing in from nearby. Bryant hit the long-range bucket and put the Cavaliers ahead of Orlando by 12 points entering the final 12 minutes.<\/p>\n

The corner trey was one of four made by Cleveland, and the Magic were unable to get closer than nine points again in the fourth quarter during Orlando\u2019s third straight loss, 119-105, on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Considered the easiest 3-point shot in basketball, given its shorter distance from the rim compared to the rest of the perimeter, the corners actually gave the Magic all sorts of problems against the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

In fact, both teams made the same amount of 3-pointers (11) from above the break (shots that are taken from the top of the key or wings). But while Cleveland shot 4 for 9 (44.4%) from the corners, Orlando missed all 12 of its corner triples (six on each side), according to league-tracking data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the game,\u201d said Magic guard Desmond Bane, who missed one corner 3-pointer but hit two near the top of the key. \u201cThey ended up shooting it better in the second half but a lot of the shots they missed, they ended up with getting offensive rebounds and getting second-chance shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that helped their offense,\u201d he added. \u201cWe were one-and-done a lot of of times, missing layups around the rim, missing open 3s. That\u2019s how it went.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic actually scored more second-chance points than Cleveland (14 vs. 6) but a majority of their points came at the free throw line. Orlando missed out on second-chance points when it shot 2 for 8 in those scenarios, including 1 for 6 in the first half.<\/p>\n

And on the other end, Cleveland racked up 50 points in the paint, notched 14 fast-break points and recorded 27 assists compared to Orlando\u2019s 21.<\/p>\n

The Magic fell to 3-10 when recording 23-or-fewer assists this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough,\u201d Suggs said. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t get some baskets when we needed them. I don\u2019t think that we were able to string enough together to go on a 7-0 run, 10-0 run, something like that to really not only get the crowd into it but to build a lead and kind of get ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to be chasing the whole game, especially at home,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

While the Magic couldn\u2019t convert from distance as accurately as the Cavaliers, Orlando\u2019s perimeter defense has taken a hit as of late as well.<\/p>\n

For the season as a whole, opposing teams have shot 36.5% from 3-point range against the Magic, a percentage just outside the bottom-10 league-wide, according to NBA.com<\/a>. Opponents, however, have shot 38.6% from distance against Orlando the last 10 games (which ranked third-highest) and an even better 45.5% the last five games (which led the league during that stretch<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Cleveland won all four quarters and limited Orlando to 25 points or fewer in each of the first three. While Orlando notched 35 points in the fourth, the damage was already done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think we\u2019ve got to do a better job containing the ball,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cI thought we were good and decent in our pick-and-roll defense, getting hits on guys rolling to the rim. But getting out to those shooters on time, making sure we\u2019re closing out the right way. \u2026 Again, they hit some tough ones and we missed a lot of easy ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of it led to Orlando\u2019s third consecutive defeat, the team\u2019s first losing streak of at least three games since late October when the Magic dropped four in a row to open the season 1-4. The last three losses have come by an average of 19.3 points.<\/p>\n

And for the third straight season, the team sits at 23-21 through 44 games.<\/p>\n

Entering Sunday\u2019s slate of games, Orlando was seventh in the East, a game behind No. 6 Philadelphia (24-20) and 2.5 games back of No. 5 Cleveland (27-20), the latter of which it faces again Monday on the road.<\/p>\n

While the team welcomed back Suggs to the court after he missed eight games due to a right knee MCL bruise, there\u2019s concern Franz Wagner could miss more time.<\/p>\n

Wagner, who\u2019s dealing with lingering left ankle soreness after he played twice following a 16-game absence because of a high left ankle sprain, only went through a little bit of light non-contact on-court shooting at Saturday shootaround, Mosley said.<\/p>\n

The Magic forward will miss Monday\u2019s game at Cleveland, his third in a row. His injury description was changed from \u201cleft ankle soreness\u201d after the last two games to \u201cleft high ankle sprain injury management,\u201d according to the NBA injury report posted Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Magic coach was asked prior to Saturday\u2019s game whether or not Wagner was rushed back from the sprain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are things that I\u2019m not looking at,\u201d Mosley said. \u201cWhen he thought he could go, he went. And we thought he could go, he went. You can\u2019t look back and say what we could or should have done at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that moment, it\u2019s how he felt and then that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to be smart [about] moving forward with him,\u201d Mosley added.<\/p>\n

Despite a third loss in a row, the Magic believe they\u2019re close to turning the corner when they travel to Cleveland on Monday and Miami on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a basketball player, you know the feeling of when you\u2019re doing the right thing whether the result falls in your favor or not, and [Saturday night] I thought, it was better,\u201d Bane said. \u201cIt was a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously not good enough but a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Up next \u2026<\/p>\n

Magic at Cavaliers<\/p>\n

When: 7 p.m., Monday, Rocket Arena<\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0Peacock, FanDuel Sports Network Florida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trailing the Cavaliers by nine points with less than 30 seconds remaining in the third quarter of Saturday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,165,6,76,1412,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-560752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-orlando-magic","16":"tag-social","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115958305548069026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560752","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=560752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}