Orlando Magic 2022 Schedule: 5 key stretches to the season

Orlando Magic’s key stretches to 2022

The Gauntlet (Nov. 15-Dec. 26)

There is always one part of the schedule for every team that they complain about. The NBA is a marathon that is also a sprint. Everyone is trying their best to keep their head above water through the course of the 82-game schedule. It is not easy.

At a certain point, teams accept “schedule losses” and stretches where they just have to survive. For the Magic to have a difficult start flow into one of the most brutal months of basketball I have ever seen, it is really tough.

The schedule makers did Orlando few favors. And the month that goes from around Thanksgiving to Christmas is truly one of the most difficult stretches the league could put together for any team, let alone a young team.

The facts first before the specific matchups. During this time we are calling “The Gauntlet,” the Magic will play 16 of 22 games on the road. Do the math with how many road games are frontloaded on the Magic’s schedule.

Among those 22 games too, the Magic will play 14 games against opponents who made the 2021 Playoffs. Additionally, there are also four of the team’s 15 overall back-to-backs.

Among those four back-to-backs are two especially brutal home-to-road back-to-backs (a turnaround from facing the Chicago Bulls at home to Cleveland to face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 26-27 and going from hosting the Miami Heat to traveling to Brooklyn to face the Brooklyn Nets on Dec. 17-18).

Orlando Magic

If there is one thing the NBA should be working to get rid of — on top of continuing to decrease back-to-backs and eliminate 4-in-5 days — it is the home-to-road back-to-back that includes hours of travel. Chalk up both of these games as schedule losses.

And that does not even include a difficult Brooklyn to Milwaukee back-to-back on Nov. 19-20. That would be tough even if the Magic were not facing two of the best teams in the entire league.

This is a significantly road-heavy part of the schedule. The Magic will undoubtedly have trouble just getting their legs under them. Any team would.

This part of the schedule will open with a five-game, eight-day road trip. All five games are against playoff teams — at the Atlanta Hawks (Nov. 15), at the New York Knicks (Nov. 17), at the Brooklyn Nets (Nov. 19) and at the Milwaukee Bucks (Nov. 20 and 22).

Orlando at least gets to spend Thanksgiving at home.

But it will not be long before the team embarks on its longest road trip of the season — a 10-day, five-game trip through California that begins in Houston on Dec. 3 (if the league included a pit stop in the Midwest on the way back East, that would have been especially cruel).

The Magic will get some reprieve when they return to Orlando after the Dec. 12 game against the Los Angeles Lakers (the back-end of a Los Angeles back-to-back). One more three-game road trip — at Brooklyn (Dec. 18), at Toronto (Dec.20) and at Atlanta (Dec. 22) ends The Gauntlet for good.