How 51 Seconds of True-to-Form Defense Helped the Magic Stun the Cavaliers

The Orlando Magic's defense was a key catalyst to their stunning victory over the league-leading Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. One 51-second third-quarter stretch turned the game on its head, and the Magic's defense did the rest.

Orlando Magic guard Anthony Black's full-court pressure helped flip Sunday's win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on its head. / Jason Miller, Getty Images

CLEVELAND –– Fifty-one seconds.

That's all the longer it took the Orlando Magic to spurn a third-quarter run that turned its Sunday primetime matinee with the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers on its head.

And, it was the spark the Magic needed to ultimately follow through and earn a signature 108-103 road victory.

The Rocket Arena scoreboard read Cavaliers 78, Magic 70 when Goga Bitadze's made free throw notched his first point of the contest, cutting his Orlando squad's deficit to seven with 2:01 left in the third quarter.

On the inbound pass, Anthony Black hounded Cleveland's Ty Jerome with immediate full-court pressure and came up with a steal. Black dished to a cutting Franz Wagner, who dropped a floater over Tristan Thompson. 78-73.

As Jerome began up the floor again, Black walled him at midcourt. With Bitadze there as well, the Cavalier ballhandler lost the ball out of bounds. Orlando's bench arose as one, with the disruptive visitors quickly becoming the loudest group in an anxious, subdued Cleveland atmosphere. Before the restart on the side out-of-bounds pass, Black got a chest-bump from Bitadze and daps from Wagner and Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, who was fired up by his second-year guard's defense.

"It just makes us want to go get more steals," Black (17 points, two steals) said postgame of Mosley's reaction. "Coach [has] got a lot of energy. He's heavy on the defensive end, he has a lot of pride in defense, as we do. His energy was great, helped us turn up in the third quarter and helped us go on a run."

"When Anthony Black is aggressive both offensively and defensively, he is a problem," Mosley said postgame. "And that's what we asked him to do on a consistent basis. Defensively, you saw he turned the tide of the game when he picked up, got steals, was aggressive. That's the type of defense we know he can play."

On the ensuing offensive possession, Wagner buried his only three of the afternoon from the top of the key. 78-76.

Donovan Mitchell received the inbounds pass, but before he could make a move, Black and Gary Harris were attached at the hip. Harris ripped the ball from the All-Star Cavs guard, and as the home fans' silence quickly became groans, Harris laid in his only two points of the game. 78-all.

"AB started off picking up, and I think it just brought energy into the game," Harris, who was a game-best +17 in his 20 minutes, told reporters in Orlando's postgame locker room. "Once I saw him pick up, I decided to pick up."

"I tried to bring the energy on the defensive end, especially in the third quarter," Black said. "Just felt like it was a good spot to kind of press and try to get some steals. Me and Gary, we pressed them in the third."

Cleveland finally crossed half-court, but only for Mitchell to misfire from distance – one of his 11 missed threes on a 9-for-28 afternoon from the field. A loose-ball foul put Bitadze back on the line, and after two more makes at the stripe, Orlando was ahead 80-78 with 1:10 left in the third.

"I don't know how – we came back from eight down and got the lead from that stretch, stealing the ball from out of bounds and whatnot," Jonathan Isaac told reporters postgame.

A stunned Cavalier team didn't either. After the Cavs led by 13 points at the end of the first and second frames, Orlando's 35-23 third-quarter advantage set up a back-and-forth finish.

Mitchell, Jerome and Darius Garland combined for six of Cleveland's seven turnovers in the consequential quarter, part of their 11 giveaways for the night.

Down 83-82 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Orlando outscored Cleveland 26-20 in the final 12 minutes to deal the Cavaliers their first loss when leading after three quarters in 49 instances this season.

Over the entire second half, the normally sure-shooting Cavaliers made just 36.4 percent of their looks and surrendered 22 points to the Magic on 12 turnovers. Orlando scored 61 of the 104 total points scored after halftime.

It was just the fifth time in 35 games the Cavs had lost on their home floor, and this particular loss snapped a 16-game winning streak – the longest such stretch in the NBA the last two years.

"We were able to get some steals, speed the game up, knock some shots down. I think it was a good burst of life, burst of energy to go into the fourth quarter, and I think it carried over in the fourth."

"We challenged them defensively to come out and play the certain style of Magic basketball that we know we can play," Mosley said.

And that emphatic of a response?

"I think our defense was great," Paolo Banchero (24 points, 11 rebounds) said. "We were getting to their shooters, flying around, covering for each other."

"We were scrapping and clawing the whole game," Harris said. "We had a sense of urgency on the defensive side. We were out there fighting, playing to exhaustion. We knew we had days off before the next game, and we just wanted to end the road trip on a good note."

"I mean, that won us the game," Isaac said.

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• EFFORT BEHIND HOUSTAN'S HOT SHOOTING: "The kid just works," Jamahl Mosley said after Caleb Houstan's season-high night in Minnesota. CLICK HERE
• FRANZ IS A TWO-WAY STAR: Franz Wagner made history Monday night. He's become one of the NBA's most impactful all-around players. CLICK HERE
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