{"id":712894,"date":"2026-04-18T03:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712894\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:10:24","slug":"magic-rout-hornets-121-90-in-play-in-game-advance-to-face-pistons-in-1st-round-of-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712894\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic rout Hornets 121-90 in play-in game, advance to face Pistons in 1st round of playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Paolo Banchero scored 25 points and the Orlando Magic built a 35-point lead in the first\u2026<\/p>\n<p>ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Paolo Banchero scored 25 points and the Orlando Magic built a 35-point lead in the first half on the way to a 121-90 rout of Charlotte Hornets in a play-in tournament game on Friday night and advanced to a first-round playoff matchup against the Detroit Pistons.<\/p>\n<p>The Magic earned the No. 8 seed in playoffs and will start their best-of-seven series at Detroit on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>LaMelo Ball scored 21 of his 23 points in the third quarter for Charlotte.<\/p>\n<p>Banchero had 12 points and Wendell Carter Jr. added 10 as the Hornets shot 5 for 20 with six turnovers in the first quarter and fell behind 38-16.<\/p>\n<p>Ball was scoreless with two turnovers when he went to the bench with three fouls with 7:10 left in the first half. He did not score until Orlando\u2019s lead had reached 35 points in the final seconds of the half.<\/p>\n<p>The Magic were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in each of the last two postseasons and have not won a playoff round since 2010.<\/p>\n<p>The Hornets, who beat the Magic in their last three regular-season games, have not been in rhe playoffs since 2016.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NBA: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright<br \/>\n                        \u00a9\u00a02026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Paolo Banchero scored 25 points and the Orlando Magic built a 35-point lead in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,6,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-712894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116423519328484783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712894","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=712894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}