Magic SG Jalen Suggs on 4th Quarter Struggles: 'Got to Be More Disciplined'
The Orlando Magic is adjusting after losing at home to the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night, 112-92.
The 76ers' well-balanced offense saw three players score at least 20 points, and the Magic was led by Franz Wagner's game-high 24 points.
Orlando shot only 27 percent from deep and lost the turnover battle 16-10, but it was a fourth-quarter collapse that sealed the deal. With nine minutes to go, the Magic trailed by just three points. However, the Sixers went on a 23-6 run to close the game.
Cole Anthony and Jalen Suggs.
Jalen Suggs added 20 points on 50 percent shooting from the floor but went 0 for 3 in the fourth. In fact, outside of Caleb Houston, no Magic player who took multiple shots in the final frame made more than a quarter of them.
After the game, Suggs confessed that the fourth quarter has been challenging for the young squad.
"Continuing to stay together as a unit, continue to play basketball that we have played, you know, leading up to that point," Suggs said when naming a solution for the team's fourth-quarter woes. "Part of it is turnovers and part of it is we just missed open looks. They had some tough buckets ... We got to be more disciplined, more solid to close those up."
To Orlando's credit, the team only turned the ball over twice in the fourth, but when you shoot 25 percent from the floor, it doesn't really matter how the Sixers got the ball back, crashing the defensive boards was very effective for Philadelphia.
Fourth-quarter collapses are fairly common for a young team, and Orlando has been playing much better than expected. Losing to the Sixers is not a statement loss for the Magic, but the team needs to figure out how to close games out before the playoffs start.
