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The 5 most important Orlando Magic games in the 2024-25 season

The Orlando Magic are less than a month away from the beginning of training camp. There is a lot of work to do before the season begins on Oct. 23. But already, there are a few games that are rising in their levels of importance.

By Philip Rossman-Reich

The Orlando Magic have a lot to look forward into the 2025 season. There are already games on the schedule that look bigger than the others.
The Orlando Magic have a lot to look forward into the 2025 season. There are already games on the schedule that look bigger than the others. / Jim Rassol-Imagn Images
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5. Opening Night: at Miami Heat (Oct. 23)

It is probably too easy to pick out the first game of the season as one of the more important games. It is easily one of the most anticipated games of the season as all opening games are.

But games against the Miami Heat always have a ton of meaning. There is a lot of important symbolism in those games not just because these are intrastate rivals.

The Heat are the team the Magic and the rest of the Southeast Division—maybe the entire Eastern Conference—have been chasing. To be the champs, you have to beat the champs as they say.

While the Magic finished ahead of the Heat in last year's standings, there is still the whiff of "Is this team really better?" After all, if the Orlando Magic had lost its last regular season game to the Milwaukee Bucks, they would have fallen to the 8-seed and headed to Miami for a Play-In Tournament game.

On top of that, Orlando went only 1-3 last year against Miami, including two injury-riddled defeats (on both sides) at Kaseya Center in January and February.

The Magic have left some space for a 2024 Southeast Division championship banner (it was not hung the last time I was in the facility in July), but they did not win it convincingly. And a second banner in 2025 would say something entirely different.

Everyone is expecting the Magic to take the mantle as the best team in the Southeast Division sooner rather than later. With the Heat facing many questions on their roster and their future after skating through last season—a chief Heat complaint is they did not take the regular season seriously—it seems likely the Magic are set to rule over the Southeast for the foreseeable future.

But they have to take it first. And that is the big question for the Magic, whether they can put a stake through the Heat and finally kill off that team that has struggled to stay in the hunt for homecourt advantage the last two seasons.

The rest of the league is probably not going to buy rumors of the Heat's demise until they are finally rebuilding—Jimmy Butler's uncertain contract situation is accelerating the urgency surrounding this season. Miami is not letting go of its grip over the state or the division without a fight.

On opening night, the Magic then have a chance to make a pretty big statement of intent. A win in Miami on opening night asserts dominance and intention. Intention that the Magic are going to run the state for the rest of the season.

At the very least, Orlando has to show it is looking to defend what it gained last year and begin expanding its ambitions for the next season. Opening night is a big one.

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