The Orlando Magic again pushed one of the league’s best and had one of their better games. But they could not make up those last little plays in the end.
The Orlando Magic were determined not to get “punked” by the Cleveland Cavaliers again. In three previous meetings, that is all the Cavaliers had done, toyed with the Magic and then put them to rest early, blowing the doors open and blowing them out.
The Magic had to set the tone early on the defensive end, getting physical with LeBron James and darting into passing lanes to try to get steals. The Magic were here to play.
And Cleveland had to be ready for it throughout the game. The Cavaliers tried to get their push and the Magic responded. It was not until the final moments when the Cavaliers finally asserted themselves and won the game.
These are the plays where the Magic have come up short. The little plays and extra possessions that earn wins. The missed open shots from Brandon Jennings, the inability to get a hot Victor Oladipo, who scored a career-high 45 points, the ball in the fourth quarter when the team absolutely needed a bucket, the inability to pick up an offensive rebound.
Those were the killer plays. The ones the Cavaliers’ role players found at the end of the game.
In two possessions late in the fourth quarter with the Magic needing baskets to close the gap and keep their upset bid alive, the Cavaliers scratched out those plays to hold on for a 109-103 victory at Amway Center on Friday.
| Score | Off. Rtg. | eFG% | O.Reb.% | TO% | FTR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland | 109 | 111.4 | 58.6 | 25.0 | 19.4 | 35.5 |
| Orlando | 103 | 107.7 | 51.8 | 22.0 | 13.6 | 26.8 |
Kyrie Irving (CLE) — 26 pts..; Tristan Thompson (CLE) — 11 pts., 15 rebs.
Victor Oladipo (ORL) — 45 pts.; Evan Fournier (ORL) — 18 pts.
With the Magic down seven points and 1:12 to play, Channing Frye missed a 3-pointer from the wing. Jason Smith had good box out position on Tristan Thompson, but Thompson was able to beat Smith to the ball and bring it in. He kicked it back out to LeBron James to wind down the clock. there were 24 seconds gone even if Thompson ended up missing two free throws.
On Clevleand’s next possession, following an Oladipo 3-pointer, the Magic forced James into a difficult 3-pointer. The ball hit off the back rim and toward the corner where Iman Shumpert collected it. With 25 seconds left, it would take a miracle to erase the six-point deficit. One the Cavaliers do not allow.
“We couldn’t get the stops at the end of the game to win it,” Evan Fournier said. “It’s that simple. It is frustrating because we were close.
“For a guy like Thompson, he’s such a beast down low. It’s hard. Those are the little details that hurt us. Offensive rebounds, the rotation on Channing for open 3s.”
Those 50/50 plays down the stretch truly hurt the Magic.
The Cavaliers got good contributions from their bench to help ice the Magic, using the bench lineup to make a comeback in the game and take back control in the fourth quarter. Every bench player for the Cavaliers had a positive plus/minus with Channing Frye scoring 14 points on 4-for-6 shooting from beyond the arc in his first game back in Orlando.
Every player on the Magic bench had a negative plus-minus. A telltale sign of the balance the Magic were lacking and the moments the Magic let go.
But Orlando was truly close in this one. Cleveland never led by more than 11 points, just as Orlando did. And the Magic did not let the Cavaliers break containment too much. They were able to reel the Cavaliers back in.
Oladipo was a big part of that, scoring a career-high 45 points, the most points by a Magic player since Dwight Howard‘s free-throw game against the Golden State Warriors in January 2012. He was truly on fire, making 16 of 22 shots and 6 for 7 from beyond the arc. He was efficient and making everything he threw up, mixing in some nice drives in the process too.
Perhaps the Magic needed just a little bit more from everyone else to close the gap fully.
“He’s been lately very good again defensively,” coach Scott Skiles said about Oladipo. “He is starting the game getting up on people and trying to lead and set an aggressive tone for us. He is playing well offensively the last couple weeks. We needed more than that. Our box score is very odd — 45, 18 and 10 are our three leading scorers. We didn’t have enough guys going along with it.”
The Magic though generally did a decent job defensively on LeBron James. He had just 18 points on 6-for-15 shooting, although he did dish out eight assists. The Magic kept him largely in check.
Orlando had good defensive energy and pressure throughout the game. A tone Oladipo helped set from the opening tip.
Where they got in trouble was in overshading and overhelping him on some occasions. The Magic would have an extra defender keeping James out of the paint. That would sometimes have them a hair late to the perimeter to defend the 3-pointer.
The Cavaliers made 13 of 28 3-pointers, but made 10 of 17 in the first half. Orlando had some very strong defense throughout the game when the team made its comeback and got out in transition on several occasions.
Cleveland can be really dangerous when it gets out in transition and so a big key defensively was simply making shots and keeping Cleveland from pushing it in transition.
Even with Orlando shooting 45.1 percent from the floor, the team was effective offensively for much of the night. Scoring helped a lot.
“I thought our guys really did come to play today,” Victor Oladipo said. “They had too much firepower for us. We’ve just got to go into this road trip with a belief that we are capable of winning and I think we’ll be all right.”
The Magic were right there. But also very far. The team had another contender on the ropes but were unable to finish the deal.
That might be the biggest definition of the gap between where the Magic are at outside the Playoffs and where a team like the Cavaliers can be.
Cleveland was not playing at its best, but could afford a few mistakes and buckle down to pick up the win. The Magic did not have that margin for error.
Those momentary lulls cost them the game and a chance at the upset. Those little plays and 50/50 balls lost mattered in the end.
“I’m very proud of how we played,” Aaron Gordon said. “We played really hard, really tough. But you’ve got to put an entire game together to beat them. We just had a couple of minutes of a lull and we lost because of it.”
There may not be a next time this season against these Cavaliers. The Magic though ahve struggled even to carry a good effort from one game to the next. A new challenge for a team that needs to rise to the occasion again.