Orlando, FL – Orlando suffers a tough loss tonight here at the Amway Center to the Dallas Mavericks as they lost this game 117-102.
The Magic got off to an incredible start to this game in the first half playing with a lot of energy, and intensity, and they were doing a great job of playing unselfishly.
Orlando had shot 7-11 from behind the arc, Paolo Banchero had 16 points at the half, and the Magic had 20 assists on 26 made field goals. Orlando went into the halftime locker room up 66-53.
Dallas outscored the Magic 33-17 in the third period and they never looked back. The Mavericks did a great job of adjusting defensively, getting out of their zone defense, and forcing the Magic to take a lot more contested jumpers.
The fourth quarter wasn’t very favorable for Orlando as they got into foul trouble with eight in the period, they were sloppy with the ball, and they just couldn’t get any rhythm at all.
Cole Anthony hit a big three over Kyrie Irving to cut the lead to 98-95 with 6:27 remaining in the game. Two back-to-back threes by Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving were the nail in the coffin for the Magic as that extended the Mavericks’ lead to 14 late in the game.
In the entire second half Orlando only scored 36 points and they shot an abysmal 1-16 from deep, something this young team could not overcome.
I asked both Mo Wagner after the game about how Dallas’s defense adjusted in that second half and he had this to say, “I mean yeah, I do think we got a little stagnant. It’s hard to score in this league. You need to have the right energy all the time and have everybody involved, and I think that kind of killed us a bit today.”
Orlando falls to 4-3 on the season and will be traveling to Mexico City tomorrow to take on the Atlanta Hawks this Thursday evening.