Orlando Magic’s top moments vs. LeBron James
10. The Orlando Surprise
October 21, 2017
The third game in the season for both teams, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have a freshly reformed roster after trading a disgruntled Kyrie Irving to the Boston Celtics. But this is still a team trying to make a championship run, albeit pieced together with Kevin Love remaining along with veterans like Jeff Green, Dwyane Wade and Jose Calderon.
The Magic, who went on to have the 14th-worst record in the Eastern Conference, had enough this early season game to stomp Cleveland behind a surprising 3-point barrage.
Carried by Nikola Vucevic putting up 23 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks along with a 19-point bench outburst by Jonathon Simmons, they stunned the Cavaliers to improve to 2-1 in the early season.
LeBron James, Kevin Love and Iman Shumpert tried as they combined for 62 points but the team as a whole shot 38.4 percent from the field and 28.0 percent from 3.
This was a rare game in this stretch of basketball where the Magic won every metric and feeling. This win shouldn’t have happened and especially in the margin of victory that it did.
It was a rare piece of success in this era of Magic basketball against James.