I have never been more excited for this season than I am right now.
“But how can this be?” You might ask. “We lost! By one point!” And to that, I say: yes. I know we lost. But the record book does not tell the full story. Because this loss was a win in disguise for this team going forward.
What makes me so confident in saying that? We outplayed the Boston Celtics without three of our potential starters. As a matter of fact, we consistently outplayed them. I saw it with my own two eyes, at TD Garden. The Magic were on top for most of the game, so much so that Annika, a friend I was watching with, stopped paying attention and spent the rest of the game criticizing Robert Williams III’s tattoos. It was that one-sided of a game in our favor. And like my friend’s taste in tattoos, the Magic’s dominance was absolutely valid.
Right away, the first notable takeaway from this game to me was how well we shared the ball. Our priority throughout the entire game was getting as many good looks as possible, never settling for a bad shot. It was this ball movement that gave the Magic several opportunities to make three-pointers, many of which went in. That was the biggest surprise of the night. The Orlando Magic, a team that has long been notorious for its terrible shooting, had a great game from beyond the arc. But not just a great game. By our standards, we had an excellent three-point shooting night. We hit seventeen of our forty-two total three-point shots, giving us a 40.5% team three-point shooting percentage. That was higher than our field goal percentage!
We had a phenomenal night offensively, and I contribute most of that to our outstanding ball movement, three words I rarely ever uttered in regards to this team last year. But that was not our only bright spot. We were also pretty good on the opposite side of the ball, playing tenacious defense throughout most of the game. We had a few hiccups (Jaylen Brown should not have been as open as often as he was), but we gave the Celtics a very hard time. We looked focused, engaged, and determined, much more than we did last year.
So what changed? Honestly, I think it’s Coach Mosley. He promised in his introductory press conference that the Magic would play with “pace, space, and the pass,” three things that the team has been bad at for the better part of a decade. And he delivered on that promise. I have not seen this team hustle this hard, play this connected or shoot this well in a long time. Nor has this team’s chemistry ever been as high as it was against the Celtics. On any given play, you can tell that the team trusted one another. They knew each other’s strengths and covered for their weaknesses. That too is a change that Coach Mo brought to this team. He insisted that this team be a “family atmosphere,” and it certainly felt that way. Every single one of our players played hard and made sure they had ample opportunity to perform to the best of their abilities. Steve Clifford could not do that. But Mosley could. I am very impressed with Mosley first game as our head coach, and I cannot wait for him to lead this team back to the postseason and beyond within a few years.
Speaking of “Mo’s”, both of ours played incredible. Mo Bamba and Moe Wagner unequivocally earned co-MVPs of the night, and they did so from the bench. Bamba began this game with impeccable defense, and he finished it with a double-double and as our top shot blocker and rebounder. There’s long been a serious case to be made that he should start over Wendell Carter, Jr., and this game proved it. It also suggested something that Magic fans have known for a long time: Mo Bamba still has potential. The NBA criticized him for being the black sheep in the loaded 2018 NBA Draft Class, labeling him a bust before his rookie contract could even run out. But we knew he wasn’t. We knew that he was a competent head coach away from becoming a future star in this league. And Jamahl Mosley was that competent coach, actually giving him the playing time that Steve Clifford never did.
I’m so excited to see what he will bring to the team this season, as it was no surprise to us that he’d play well when given the chance. What was a surprise, however, was our top scorer, Moe Wagner. I thought he was almost flawless in this game, especially offensively. It genuinely looked like Nikola Vucevic was back in pinstripes, if Vucevic developed a consistent and (hopefully) reliable three-point shot. I think he’ll end up being a core piece for our team going forward, and I’m very glad we re-signed him this past summer. Our record will thank Jeff Weltman for that.
But it was not just those two. Our whole bench played so well last night, even outplaying our starters in many ways. RJ Hampton finished with 7 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists in just over twenty-two minutes, and he was productive and noticeable enough to receive a few compliments from Annika on his leg tattoos. E’Twaun Moore may have been scoreless, but do not let that fool you. He played great defense in the nineteen minutes he touched the court, a major reason why we held onto our lead for most of the game. And I cannot talk about our bench unit without praising Cole Anthony, and frankly, I think we as Magic fans owe him an apology. Remember how we criticized him throughout the summer league, even going as far as to lose hope in him? Yeah, that’s no more. He finished the game with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists and showed off his amazing chemistry with Mo Bamba on a number of plays and even flashed strong defensive potential, something that Coach Mosley likely instilled in him these past few weeks.
It’s clear he’s vying for one of those elusive starting guard spots, and I think he’s a strong contender to receive one. But he’ll have to beat Jalen Suggs for it, who ended up starting last night. The stat sheet indicates that Suggs had a fairly modest game, but he already showed that he can be an excellent facilitator and confident shot creator, two things we desperately need. He played well in his first-ever NBA game, looking like a longtime veteran. He passed the ball very well, he opened his team up for looks, played great defense on Marcus Smart, and even took a deep three and sank it without any hesitation in the second quarter. I think he can become the cornerstone of the franchise one day.
Not everyone showed that same potential, however. I liked what I saw from Wendell Carter, Jr. offensively, but I felt he got pushed around far too often on defense. It was as if he was a non-entity whenever the Celtics were in the paint, even being the poor recipient of a Jayson Tatum poster. Again, I do think Carter was great on offense, nearly nabbing a double-double. But he needs to become a more confident and active defender in the paint, or else our post-play will become a huge liability in our starting unit. Gary Harris may have finished the game with ten points (and nothing else), but he got there after doing cardio for the entire first half. Seeing Harris initially contribute nothing to the stat sheet as a starter made me feel bad for both Anthony and Hampton, who sat on the bench as Harris ran up and down the court. Both of them played that game like they wanted that starting spot, and admittedly, they both deserve it over Harris.
It’s likely that Markelle Fultz will take over once he returns, but I worry that Harris is getting in the way of Anthony’s and Hampton’s development. I know, it’s only the first game, and he did finish with ten points, but Harris did not play like a starter. Franz Wagner too, had a disappointing first game. While his brother lit up the nets and played super well, Franz finished with just 3 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists in only 19 minutes. He looked very uncomfortable as a shot creator, he played hot potato with the ball any chance he could, and I noticed a considerable lack of effort defensively in the third quarter. I’m not knocking Franz too much, as this is his first ever NBA game. But even still, he has a lot of work to do if he wants to prove his many doubters wrong.
I initially was not going to discuss this when first writing this article, as I felt as if it was inconsequential in the long run, but I’d be remiss not to address the elephant in the room, the reason why we lost: our G-Leaguers. With five minutes left in the game (and a Magic lead), Coach Mosley sent out a five-man unit of Jeff Dowtin, Hassani Gravett, Iggy Brazdeikis, Jon Teske, and Admiral Schofield. While an audible “WTF” did exit from my lips as soon as I saw that lineup, I understand why Mosley put them in. They needed experience, and that’s what the preseason is all about. These were guys that had hardly been given a shot in the league. And not all five of them will make the final roster. They’d likely spend most of the season in Lakeland, and this was an experiment for Mosley to see which, if any of them, were worthy of being called up to the NBA at any point.
It was also a nice gesture to give these guys some playing time. That did not mean they played well. After witnessing some of the most porous defense I’ve ever seen, we lost the lead we had worked so hard to build. Hassani Gravett blew two chances at restoring that lead as we lost the game. They looked helpless out there. Even Iggy, one of my personal favorite acquisitions of last season, could not do much. It’s only the preseason, yes, but knowing that we could have won this game had we not played five of our G-Leaguers at once had me a little disappointed (or as Annika put it, “seething in anger”). But it’s not that big of a deal. We would have won the game in any other circumstance. And that’s what we should be focusing on. We outplayed the Boston Celtics without Markelle Fultz, Jonathan Isaac, Chuma Okeke, or Michael Carter-Williams.
Most of our players stepped up and played very well and our disappointments were just that: disappointments. They are areas of improvement on a team that has already improved so much from last season. This team has potential to surprise a lot of people, and that’s the biggest takeaway from the night as we look to face New Orleans on Wednesday, hoping to earn a win for the standings to accompany this game’s win for our team’s future.
This is going to be a magical season.
