Orlando Magic-Stars Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner engaged Tuesday’s NBA Play-in game with an average combined 60-plus points against the Atlanta Hawks this season. But while the two stugs to find their attack, the bank’s bank got up and led to a win of 120-95.
Cole Anthony came from the bank to lead Orlando with 26 points and six assists, while Anthony Black scored 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting and a game-high plus-34 was in 28 minutes. With the victory, the magic will move forward to play in a first round Playoff series against the Boston Celtics from Sunday in Boston.
After it had jumped into an early head start of double digits, it seemed that the magic would cruise that would be 7-seed, but the hawks saw out of the break. The margin reduced to 71-68 by another three minutes in the third quarter when the Orlando attack became cold. It is common for magic to have bad offensive pieces during games and that will be a problem to get ahead. It brought down Alamost on Tuesday, but they kicked in gear and did not let Atlanta conquer the lead before the Hawks blow out of the water in the fourth quarter.
The Magic Te makes their lack of offense well with one of the best defenses in the NBA. That could be seen on Tuesday when they held the Hawks to 38.1% shooting from the field and 19% from 3-point range. While Young finished with 28 points, he was an Ine Fuss 8-of-21 and the magic came under his skin to the point that he kicked the ball in anger and earned a technical error in the fourth quarter.
Bancer ended with 17 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, but Orlando needs more from him if it wants a chance against Boston.
The corresponding press contributes to this report.
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