Orlando, FL – The Magic continued their four-game road trip by traveling from Phoenix to San Francisco after a loss on New Year’s Eve to the Suns, falling short 115-121 to the Warriors.
The Magic were blazing hot to start the game, going on an 11-2 run in the first three minutes of the game thanks to Franz Wagner coming off to a quick few buckets and Jalen Suggs setting up for an open three. The Warriors looked lost offensively and superstar Steph Curry had not been unlocked yet, so the Magic took advantage with their notoriously good defense to transition to offense. As Franz tried to continue his hot streak and Paolo Banchero tried to ease himself into the game, Orlando seemed to have shot themselves in the foot a bit as both stars struggled a bit throughout the rest of the quarter, ending with a combined 4-12 shooting. Banchero’s lack of scoring was somewhat made up for with his big frame getting a huge seven rebounds over Warriors rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis. Ultimately, Golden State worked their way back into the game and rounded out the quarter with a two-point lead over Orlando.
The second quarter was scary for the Magic as Steph Curry seemed to finally find his rhythm. The Magic went deep into the guard rotation to try and throw everything they had at Curry in hopes of cooling him down, but the star had other plans. He was all over the floor and had Orlando scrambling to try and defend him on every spot on the floor, but Curry nonetheless got 12 of the Warriors’ 25 points in the quarter. The Magic didn’t have a single great scorer like Golden State did, however, the team moved the ball extremely well, with six assists in the period, and everybody got a piece of the pie. The majority of Magic players that saw the court in the second scored themselves a bucket in an all-around effort to finish the half tied up with the former champions.
In the third quarter, Orlando plotted to key in more on Curry to avoid another quarter like the previous one, but Golden State was well prepared and distributed the ball, and more importantly, the other Warriors were hitting their shots. Orlando initially had a hard time adjusting the defense, with the help man always shadowing Curry to be ready for a double if need be, but on a handful of occasions, this just led to a shot by the weak side. Offensively, sophomore Caleb Houstan saw his only minutes of the night when the Magic were in desperate need of some spacing and he came in and delivered with two nice threes, half of Orlando’s long-range shots this quarter. Goga and Paolo did exceptionally well this quarter in using their size to expose certain matchups down low on the block and combined for 12 of Orlando’s 26 points in the quarter. The score saw the Magic down 81-87 going into the fourth quarter.
In the final quarter of play, both team’s stars were going at each other, with Franz and Paolo having efficient scoring from their spots, with Paolo sitting at 50% and Franz at 80% shooting from the field. Mo Wagner was also impactful from all over the floor, pouring in seven points on the Warriors when they went with their fabled small-ball lineup. On the other end of the floor, the Magic did a good job of shutting down the passing lanes that were killing them last quarter, but this left Curry on our guards with little to no help defense, which he was able to expose by getting yet another double-digit scoring quarter in this game with 10 points. The Magic did all they could, but with Curry keeping Golden State in the game and some costly late-game mistakes for Orlando, the quarter ended in a tie and the home side’s lead from the previous quarter spilled over into this one and resulted in Orlando’s second straight loss of the road trip.
Orlando will stay in California and travel to the capital to play Sacramento in hopes of turning things around during the second half of a back-to-back against a Kings team that is also coming fresh off a loss.
