ORLANDO, Fla. — On paper, what happened Monday night made no sense.
Minus Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Moe Wagner, how on earth did the Orlando Magic defeat the defending champion Boston Celtics 108-104?
Jayson Tatum sitting out because of a non-COVID-19 illness of course played a role. Having home-court advantage helped. An uncharacteristically hot shooting night from 3 made a huge difference.
But all of that still doesn’t entirely explain what happened. There’s something going on in Orlando, and there has been for some time. Perhaps no team in the NBA this season possesses the through-the-roof intangibles the Magic have. They’ve created a team that — even without Banchero and the Wagner brothers — is far greater than the sum of its parts.
“We had complete trust in one another,” Jalen Suggs said.
“We’ve just got dawgs, man,” Cole Anthony said. “It don’t really need to be explained.”
Actually, what the Magic are doing does need to be explained. A widely accepted bit of conventional NBA wisdom is that a team playing without its best player can still win any single game but will encounter difficulties over the long haul. The Magic, now 19-12, have contradicted that wisdom. They thrived after Banchero tore an oblique muscle in late October. They’ve gone 3-3 since Franz Wagner tore an oblique muscle on Dec. 6. And, in their first full game without Moe Wagner, a Sixth Man of the Year candidate, they recovered from a 15-point halftime deficit to stun the Celtics.
Even without Tatum, Boston’s starting five Monday of Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Al Horford, Kristaps Porziņģis and Jaylen Brown is a superb starting five.
Orlando, on the other hand, started two-way contract player Trevelin Queen, who had never started an NBA regular-season game before, and 23-year-old rookie Tristan da Silva, along with Suggs, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Goga Bitadze.
Queen scored 17 points and, with Orlando clinging to a one-point lead with 12 seconds remaining, hurled a pass to da Silva in the left corner. Da Silva elevated and swished a 3-pointer to guarantee the win.
The prior two days had been a roller coaster. On Saturday, Moe Wagner suffered a knee injury and the Magic, trailing by 22 points at the end of the third quarter, rallied to beat the Miami Heat, outscoring the Heat 37-8 in the final quarter. On Sunday, an MRI confirmed Wagner had torn an ACL and will miss the rest of the season.
“I feel like it shows the toughness of this group, the togetherness, how much everybody loves each other, and just stepping out there and doing it for each other,” da Silva said. “Moe went down last game, so stepping out there and kind of bringing that energy like he always does, I feel like that was big.”
There’s a school of thought that the Magic, with their defensive scheme and positional size, actually match up better against the Celtics than against the New York Knicks or Cleveland Cavaliers. Boston entered Monday leading the league in 3-point attempts per game, at 51.0. But Orlando led the league in fewest 3-point attempts allowed per game, at 31.8.
On Monday, Orlando limited Boston to 8-of-33 shooting from beyond the arc.
“We followed the game plan the coaches had for us,” Caldwell-Pope said. “Take the 3 away from them. Take transition (opportunities) away. And try to take away easy baskets and try to force them into tough 2s.”
Brown scored a game-high 35 points.
“It was a physical game,” Brown said. “Give credit to Orlando. We should have met the physicality a little bit better. I think it is a good preparation game. Things weren’t going our way. We felt like the officials were one-sided, so I think that was good for us. I think we need to see that more. Get used to that more and get more comfortable with that level of environment.”
Perhaps no one has described the Magic’s essence more accurately than SiriusXM NBA Radio host Rob Perez, who on Monday night tweeted: “There’s always that one guy at the park who goes way too hard and treats random games of pickup like life or death. The Orlando Magic are five of these people for 48 straight (minutes) every night.”
That’s right.
“I think it’s natural,” Bitadze said. “I mean, we have guys that enjoy just playing defense and just are naturally talented. When we’re playing defense, we are some dawgs.”
The first person Magic players typically credit for their team’s success is their coach, Jamahl Mosley.
Mosley finished as the runner-up for NBA Coach of the Year last season, trailing only Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault. But so far this year, Mosley’s case is stronger because of the injuries to Banchero and the Wagners. Perhaps Mosley’s greatest achievement this season is that he has his team believing it can overcome almost any adversity.
“It’s who we are,” Mosley said after Monday’s victory. “I’m not going to get tired of saying that, and I don’t want them to act surprised. We talk about the belief you have to have, the work ethic you have to have, the togetherness that we have. That’s this group. I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. I think that’s what they have shown. That’s what they continue to prove. And they believe it.”
It all sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
The Magic are not without their flaws. They’re going to need Banchero back relatively soon to remain in fourth place in the East. Franz Wagner’s return will be crucial, too. But even with Banchero and the younger Wagner, Orlando still tends to struggle shooting 3s. And like many young teams, the Magic still need to improve on the road (7-10).
But watch them play for a few consecutive games, and any skepticism about their intangibles will evaporate.
In the Magic’s locker room after the game, I asked second-year guard Anthony Black, another tall defensive ace, how he would describe his team to basketball fans who hadn’t seen the Magic yet.
Black paused for a moment.
“Just a young, hungry group that’s really deep,” Black answered. “We’ve just got a lot of guys ready to step up, a lot of young guys that aren’t scared of the big teams or the big stage. A fearless young group that trusts each other. We just go to battle for each other.”
Da Silva sat down in a chair at an adjacent locker.
Black turned to his pal and asked, “How would you describe this group, Tristan?”
“In one word?” da Silva said. “Cohesive.”
That’s exactly right.
(Photo of Jaylen Brown and Jalen Suggs: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
