Orlando, FL – In Orlando’s second In-Season Tournament game this year and second night in Chicago, they escaped with a 103-97 victory over the Bulls in what was a down-to-the-wire game that saw the Magic avoid fumbling the game away in the dying moments.
The game kicked off with Chicago coming out hot with two 3’s right off the bat, but the Magic swifty tightened up their defense and didn’t allow the Bulls to get any easy shots in the paint, continuing to force 3’s from the home team since they couldn’t penetrate inside. Caruso started off the game with some great defense, which made it difficult for Orlando to get some good ball movement going, but despite this they still got some good looks from all over the court, they just weren’t able to connect on some of these attempts. The majority of the Magic’s points came off of Chicago turnovers thanks to Goga Bitadze’s great interior presence which made the Bulls second guess themselves when he was nearby, allowing perimeter defenders to come in and swallow the home players, forcing a change of possession. Goga played some amazing defense, disallowing two alley oops and getting a block and steal in just 10 minutes of action. The offense began to really pick up when Joe Ingles got subbed in and hit a 3 point jumper, which started a slew of trips down the floor where both Ingles and Harris were draining shots from deep. The team’s elite defense limited the Bulls to just 16 points on 31.6% shooting to close out the quarter as opposed to the visitors 23 points on 42.6% shooting.
The Magic didn’t miss a beat to start the 2nd with some great defensive intensity being displayed in the first minute of the quarter, which led to two early steals, some near shot clock violations, and easy transition buckets down the other end. The bench unit didn’t disappoint when given the opportunity either, with Cole Anthony, Joe Ingles, Jonathan Isaac, and Mo Wagner being immensely productive all quarter long. An obvious issue was the half court offense, which was lackluster at times and the team being heavily reliant on their defense to provide transition opportunities and get most of their points in the first six minutes of the quarter. The tide changed once Goga and Banchero got subbed back on, which heavily improved the halfcourt offense. Goga was able to free up space for other players using his big body to move the defense and Banchero as the main ball handler made some good plays to open up opportunities for others to score by drawing in multiple defenders. With their help, the Magic closed off the half by forcing an abysmal 33 point first half from Chicago for the second game in a row and getting another large lead to head into the 2nd half of basketball, very similar to Wednesday’s game.
Coming into the quarter with a 48-33 lead, Orlando was able to carry out the work they put in the 1st half defensively for the first few minutes of the 3rd, with only Derozan really getting buckets for Chicago, getting 11 of the Bulls’ 15 points a the 5:34 mark of the game. Orlando couldn’t contain Derozan, but were able to maintain their lead through some good offensive production. Banchero and Franz Wagner were playing the facilitator role in the pick and roll with Goga, which gave the trio of players a plethora of scoring opportunities. Banchero and Franz led the team’s scoring and got themselves in great positions during their time on the court. The bench trio of Mo Wagner, Joe Ingles, and Cole Anthony got subbed in and continued their great production from the 1st half. The Bulls eventually began to click offensively and Coach Mosley called a timeout after the team had some poor turnovers and fouls, which allowed Chicago to cut the lead down to 10 and the Magic started to feel some pressure. Lavine got subbed in and hit some big shots after the timeout, but at the same time Caruso had to go into the locker room to check on an injury. The loss of their best defender was felt as the Magic took advantage of the fact and were able to roll on the offensive end behind some well rounded basketball from the five man unit of Ingles, Anthony, Isaac, and the Wagner brothers. After some back and forth between the two teams during the last few minutes, the Magic were able to keep a healthy 12 point lead headed into the 4th.
In the last period, Jonathan Isaac continued his incredible play this game with an emphatic block on Derozan and an alley oop dunk on the other end after a beautiful lob from Franz. Isaac was playing hard on both ends of the floor, moving people around inside, getting rebounds, and making hustle plays, in what might’ve been his best stretch of minutes all season long. The Magic continued to give up points to Derozan this quarter, which led to some safer offensive basketball from Orlando in an attempt to kill Chicago’s momentum. Ingles and Anthony controlled the pace and helped the team get into the paint with ease, with Orlando destroying the home team down low all game long which did not change one bit in the 4th. With Derozan out, Lavine stepped up big time and cut the Magic lead to just five points with 5:28 to go in the quarter, which made it look very much like Wednesday’s game where Orlando had a late game meltdown and lost a 20 point lead. After a long Magic timeout where Coach Mosley tried to save his team from making the same mistake twice, the Bulls were able to continue to extend their run regardless of the timeout and take the lead because of some poor basketball on both ends on the floor from Orlando. To make matters worse, the Bulls got into the penalty early, with 3:39 still to go in the period and the Magic had an over four minute point drought. Gary Harris stepped up to end Orlando’s cold streak and reclaim the lead with a buzzer beating corner 3. Coach Mosley put in arguably the five players who played best all night long, those being Isaac, Banchero, Franz Wagner, Anthony, and Harris. The unit played well up until Banchero almost lost the ball but settled for a layup which he ended up missing and resulted in Caruso, who had checked back in from the locker room just minutes ago, getting a 3 point shot for the lead. The Magic had a great possession to retaliate with Franz hitting a euro step and-1 over Vucevic to get Orlando out in front again. On the other end, Vucevic missed a corner 3 to put the Bulls back in front, which led to some Isaac free throws. He ended up making both and giving the Magic a four point lead with just 12.2 seconds to go. Lavine attempted a 3 pointer to give Chicago hope, but Harris stripped his shot and hit another two free throws to put the game away and help the visitors go 2-0 against the Bulls.
In another frustrating Orlando 2nd half, the Magic were able to pull away with another win in Chicago and are officially 3rd in East Group C, giving them hopes of getting to the wildcard round in the tournament. They will have one more game to wrap up this road trip on Sunday in hopes of getting a win against the Pacers in Indiana to extend their win streak to three.