The Orlando Magic went on an offensive romp, tearing apart the Memphis Grizzlies in the first and third quarters behind Jodie Meeks and Aaron Gordon.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T | |
| Grizzlies | 18 | 25 | 28 | 31 | 102 |
| Magic | 36 | 32 | 28 | 16 | 112 |
The Orlando Magic had gone several weeks exchanging wins for losses and treading water. As they came out of the Christmas break, they hoped for a bit more consistency. That was what team leaders were calling for after a stellar defensive performance against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday.
Consistency may still be a few games away. But no one can play three good games in a row without playing two first.
And from the start, again, Orlando asserted its dominance and put the hammer down.
Jodie Meeks got things started with a barrage of threes early as the Magic defense stifled the Memphis Grizzlies in the paint, turning their vaunted big men helpless on the glass and around the basket.
Aaron Gordon took Orlando home with 15 of his 30 points in the third quarter, including 12 straight at one point to stretch the lead back out beyond 20 points.
Orlando celebrated the holidays a day later with an 112-102 win over Memphis at Amway Center on Monday.
“We’ve started to gel,” coach Frank Vogel said. “It takes time to get to know each other and know where the shots are going to come. I’m figuring out how to use different guys. We said all along it will take time. Hopefully, we’ve made some progress. We’ve looked pretty good offensively over the last X amount of games. Hopefully, it continues.”
Orlando kept the offensive pressure on, shooting 50.6 percent from the floor, and 13 for 26 from beyond the arc. The team never really let up, making shots at an incredible clip.
Even when Troy Daniels or Marc Gasol got their offensive games rolling, the Magic had an answer on the offensive end, tearing apart a vaunted Grizzlies defense still struggling to integrate the returning Chandler Parsons and Mike Conley.
Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton were both attacking and probing the lane scoring seemingly at will — eventually Payton finding Gordon for a highlight-reel one-handed jam from Gordon. With all the other highlights he was producing, that one was just the icing on top.