{"id":876216,"date":"2026-11-05T00:12:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/876216\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T00:12:33","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:12:33","slug":"orlando-magic-head-west-searching-to-string-wins-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/876216\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic head west searching to string wins together"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Magic<\/a> travel for a four-game West Coast road trip that starts Thursday night at Phoenix, Orlando<\/a> believes the seven-day stretch away from home will help the team shake off a 2-5 start to the regular season.<\/p>\n

Last season under past coach Jamahl Mosley, the Magic used a 3-1 performance on a four-game road trip out west to catapult themselves to win 10 of their first 13 games following the NBA All-Star break.<\/p>\n

Under new coach Sean Sweeney<\/a>, Orlando, which features much of the same roster as a year ago, is hoping for similar results when it faces the Suns, Warriors, Kings and Jazz over the course of the next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you go on the road, the idea is that you work together, bind together and ultimately become closer and better because of it,\u201d Sweeney said after practice inside the AdventHealth Training Center before the team traveled Wednesday. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the idea, is to get better and get closer together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic know what they need to do in order to achieve better results after dropping back-to-back games against Boston and Washington earlier this week to fall to 0-4 at Kia Center<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n

Despite a small sample size of just seven games, the Magic were 28th in scoring (105.7 points per night) and 18th in opponent scoring (114.7 points per night) heading into Wednesday\u2019s slate of the games.<\/p>\n

The Magic\u2019s offensive rating (108.0) sat 23rd league-wide while their defensive rating (116.2) sat 25th, according to NBA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Magic center Wendell Carter Jr.<\/a>, who\u2019s averaged 12.4 points and 8.9 rebounds per night (both personal bests since 2022-23), was asked what would make Orlando\u2019s road trip a successful one.<\/p>\n

\u201cContinue to build,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course we want to be in that winning column a little bit more. That\u2019s always the goal, but (so is) doing it the right way (by) sticking to our process for all 48 minutes of a game. We have yet to put that together, even in some of our wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment we can get that 48 minutes together, where we\u2019re doing everything we\u2019re supposed to be doing on both ends of the court, that\u2019s when we\u2019ll start to ascend into the team that we know we can be,\u201d Carter added.<\/p>\n

One early area of the growth from the Magic under Sweeney is their ability to move the ball.<\/p>\n

Nearly 70% of Orlando\u2019s field goals made have come off assists, with just 30.1% of the team\u2019s field goals unassisted, according to NBA.com<\/a>. That percentage of field goals made assisted sat second in the league entering Wednesday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also an increase from a season ago when only 64.7% of Orlando\u2019s field goals made came off assists, which was 12th-most.<\/p>\n

In addition, the Magic have averaged 308.1 passes made per night (second-most as of Wednesday), a mark that is up from 293.3 per night last season (11th).<\/p>\n

Still, the team has averaged 17.3 turnovers per night, tied for the fifth-most in the league, according to NBA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I love the percentage of shots that are assisted,\u201d Sweeney said about Orlando\u2019s passing. \u201cThat speaks to the intent. I think the decision-making and spacing that go with it have to continue to improve. I think we saw (against) Boston, they were bringing three and four guys to the ball, and there were times where we should have been more willing to pass, especially to our bigs there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then there were times against the Wizards where I thought we had created advantages and had some good looks that we maybe moved the ball on,\u201d Sweeney added. \u201cBut in general, I like the intent, and I think the execution can continue to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlando feels confident that improvement will come as more games are played under Sweeney, starting Thursday at Phoenix (1-4).<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t help that they\u2019ll continue to be shorthanded on the road without Paolo Banchero (right high ankle sprain), Jalen Suggs<\/a> (right knee bone bruise), Noah Penda (partially torn right hamstring) and Jonathan Isaac (left knee injury management). In addition, two-way rookie Izaiyah Nelson (left ankle injury recovery) didn\u2019t travel with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s early,\u201d Carter said. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to overreact on anything. It\u2019s a new system, a lot of new things, we\u2019ve got some injuries. \u2026 But one thing I\u2019ve always said is that this group is full of winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to do whatever it takes to win, so we\u2019ll figure it out and we\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Up next<\/p>\n

What: Magic at Suns<\/p>\n

When: 9 p.m., Thursday, Mortgage Matchup Center<\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0MagicTV 27, DAZN (streaming)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Magic travel for a four-game West Coast road trip that starts Thursday night at Phoenix, Orlando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,165,48,6,47,76,3883,1412,80939,66],"class_list":["post-876216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando-magic","tag-basketball","tag-latest-headlines","tag-magic","tag-nba","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlandomagic","tag-social","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117560943748496963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876216","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=876216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}