The Magic Insider

How the Magic, Decimated by Injuries, Stunned the Heat with 4th-Quarter Rally

The Orlando Magic outscored the Miami Heat 37-8 in the fourth quarter to beat their Florida rivals, 121-114. Cole Anthony led a lineup of mostly reserves with 35 points.

Mason Williams

Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony (50) reacts after a called foul against the Miami Heat in the fourth quarter at Kia Center.
Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony (50) reacts after a called foul against the Miami Heat in the fourth quarter at Kia Center. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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ORLANDO, Fla. – All Cole Anthony could do was open his arms and soak in the Kia Center roar.

He'd hit an improbable falling-away jumper through contact with 1:09 to play, and the resilient Orlando Magic — staggered by an injury list that grew by another name Saturday night — were on the verge of history.

Led by Anthony's 35 points, the Magic erased a 22-point deficit with a 37-8 final quarter and stunned the Miami Heat, 121-114.

Rallying from 25 points down, the Magic matched the largest comeback victory in franchise history — an overtime win over Cleveland on Nov. 8, 1989, the first year of the Magic's existence.

"You can't really explain that. That's something I haven't seen," Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said postgame. "I have not seen that ever in my years in the league, the ability to stay with it despite all of the circumstances that started in the beginning of the game."

The improbable win snapped a three-game losing skid for the Magic, who improved to 2-0 this season over their south Florida rivals and 18-12 overall.

Just how improbable was it? According to Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press, teams with a 22-point lead or more entering the fourth quarter were 796-0 since Dec. 22, 2019.

They're now 796-1.

Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony (50) shoots the ball against the Miami Heat
Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony (50) shoots the ball against the Miami Heat in the third quarter at Kia Center. / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

When these two teams met in a season-opening 116-97 Magic win, the Orlando roster was playing with a clean bill of health.

That October night, the Magic got a combined 85 points, 20 rebounds and 12 assists from Banchero, Franz Wagner, Suggs, and Gary Harris.

Fast forward two months and none of those players was available Saturday night. Banchero and Wagner are out indefinitely with torn obliques. Harris has missed 11 games with a hamstring injury. Suggs sat out this game with an ankle sprain.

And then a bad situation got much worse:

  • Moe Wagner left the game in the first quarter with a left knee injury. He was carried off the court.
  • Wendell Carter Jr. was ejected after a near-instant double technical in the second quarter.
  • Anthony Black, Suggs' replacement starter, tweaked his right ankle less than a minute into the second half and never returned. After the game, he told locker room reporters that his "ankle's fine. Just a rolled ankle, nothing too crazy."

Mosley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Anthony each shared the in-game messaging during the comebacks: Get the deficit down to 12, then see what happens.

A 14-0 third-quarter run cut the visitors' advantage from 24 to 10, but Miami responded with a 16-4 run to end the quarter.

"We got it to 12 once, and they went back up," Anthony said. "(Mosley) was like, 'It's okay, get it to 12 again.' We got it to 12 [and] started hooping from there. That was fun. We had a good time."

The Magic pieced together a 26-3 fourth-quarter run to take the lead with 2:43 to play. Orlando then scored 11 of the last 16 points to complete the comeback.

"It was just a crazy display of just our spirit as a team, our togetherness, trusting each other and just how good we are," Black said.

"In the moment, through the game, you don't want to try to think about the comeback or, like, 'We're down two, let's continue to do that,'" Caldwell-Pope said. "The flow that we had was great.

"We leaned on our defense, which got us back into the game."

"It's just a belief system of this group," Mosley said. "Next man up, by committee, there's no better way to show it than what that locker room and each guy did from the beginning of the game. To go 37-8 in the fourth quarter tells you about the Magic level of defense and how we are determined to lean in on our defense to get out and go on offense."

Besides Anthony's 35 points (two shy of a career high), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (24), Goga Bitadze (18), and Black (10) joined him in double figures. Twenty-seven of Anthony's 35 came in the second half.

"He just took the game over down the stretch," Black told locker room reporters. "He made all the right plays, got us clutch buckets, and made the right pass at the end when we needed it."

Up Next

In the last game before Christmas, the Magic host the NBA champion Boston Celtics on Monday. Tip is at 7 p.m. ET from the Kia Center.

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