{"id":625612,"date":"2026-02-26T08:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625612\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:04:22","slug":"banchero-and-the-magic-take-on-sengun-and-the-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625612\/","title":{"rendered":"Banchero and the Magic take on Sengun and the Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets<\/a> (36-21, third in the Western Conference) vs. Orlando Magic<\/a> (31-26, seventh in the Eastern Conference)<\/p>\n

Orlando, Florida; Thursday, 7:30 p.m. EST<\/p>\n

Rockets -2; over\/under is 215.5<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: Paolo Banchero<\/a> and the Orlando Magic host Alperen Sengun<\/a> and the Houston Rockets in non-conference play.<\/p>\n

The Magic are 18-10 on their home court. Orlando ranks sixth in the NBA with 51.8 points in the paint led by Franz Wagner<\/a> averaging 10.9.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are 16-14 on the road. Houston averages 14.5 turnovers per game and is 15-5 when winning the turnover battle.<\/p>\n

The 115.1 points per game the Magic average are 6.0 more points than the Rockets allow (109.1). The Rockets average 114.7 points per game, 0.1 more than the 114.6 the Magic allow to opponents.<\/p>\n

The teams play for the second time this season. The Rockets won the last matchup 117-113 in overtime on Nov. 17, with Kevin Durant<\/a> scoring 35 points in the victory.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Banchero is averaging 21.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and five assists for the Magic. Desmond Bane<\/a> is averaging 24.2 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Sengun is averaging 20.5 points, 9.2 rebounds and 6.4 assists for the Rockets. Durant is averaging 21.7 points and 3.9 assists over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Magic: 6-4, averaging 112.1 points, 41.0 rebounds, 26.4 assists, 10.4 steals and 6.0 blocks per game while shooting 45.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 109.5 points per game.<\/p>\n

Rockets: 6-4, averaging 109.0 points, 44.4 rebounds, 23.6 assists, 9.2 steals and 6.5 blocks per game while shooting 48.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 105.4 points.<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Magic: Franz Wagner: out (ankle), Jalen Suggs<\/a>: day to day (back), Colin Castleton<\/a>: out (thumb).<\/p>\n

Rockets: Jae’Sean Tate<\/a>: out (knee), Fred VanVleet<\/a>: out for season (acl), Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>: out (injury management), Amen Thompson<\/a>: day to day (quad), Steven Adams<\/a>: out for season (ankle).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets (36-21, third in the Western Conference) vs. Orlando Magic (31-26, seventh in the Eastern Conference) Orlando,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[82228,7,130,194,6,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-625612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-82228","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-orlando-magic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116135896521472204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625612","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=625612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}