Magic Offense Can't Keep Pace with Knicks in Lopsided Loss

When foul trouble put leading scorer Jalen Suggs on the bench midway through the third quarter, the New York Knicks ran away from the Orlando Magic with a 54-31 second half. For the second consecutive night, the Magic offense scored fewer than 90 points.
New York Knicks forward Mikal Bridges (25) defends Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs (4) during the second quarter at Kia Center.
New York Knicks forward Mikal Bridges (25) defends Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs (4) during the second quarter at Kia Center. / Mike Watters-Imagn Images

ORLANDO, Fla. — Jalen Suggs, the Orlando Magic's defensive heartbeat, was flying around the Kia Center court Friday night when he picked up his fifth foul. His Magic were tied with the visiting New York Knicks at 63 with 6:23 remaining in the third quarter.

To that point, Suggs had a game-high 22 points and was helping keep the Magic neck-and-neck with the powerful, efficient Knicks offense. But with only one more foul to give, he was resigned to the bench.

"In that situation, Jalen is an aggressive defender. We've said that's who he is and that's what he does and how he's playing," Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said.

"At the end of the day, he's doing the things that we ask him to do, playing as hard as we need to play."

In the next eight minutes, New York closed the third quarter on a 13-5 run, then opened the fourth with a 9-2 blitz. When Orlando broke glass in case of emergency and re-entered Suggs, they trailed 85-70.

New York maintained a comfortable advantage to the final buzzer, defeating Orlando 108-85. The loss was the Magic's second in as many nights, dropping them to 19-14 this season.

Asked postgame what he saw that let the result get away from them in the third, Mosley said: "Same thing we saw last night. Turnovers."

Orlando committed 17 turnovers —12 in the second half Friday — leading to 24 New York points. The night before, they'd given Miami 25 points on 23 turnovers, also giving away the game in the process.

"We were doing a great job in that first half of getting the shots that we wanted, executing the right way," the fourth-year coach said. "You have eight turnovers in the third quarter alone, and that's when the game ballooned."

Orlando shot 4-of-17 from the field out of halftime in addition to the mounting turnovers.

"Thought it was a little tough to score in the third quarter," Suggs said postgame. "I thought we got a lot of good looks that just didn't drop [and] that carried over into the start of the fourth. Doing our best to get stops and doing our best to play defense, and they hit some tough ones. It just gets kind of hard."

Both Suggs and Mosley said the Magic were deliberate with their handling of the ball in the first half. Losing that focus contributed to them losing the game.

"They're a good enough offensive team already. They don't need any help," Suggs said. "I just think we got a bit lackadaisical in that area and they took advantage. That's what good teams do, so it gives us a lot of stuff to look back on and learn from, which is all you can ask for any time you don't get a win. It's our turn to take that and do something with it."

The Knicks clinched the season series, improving to 3-0 against Orlando with one more matchup in January. Head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker for playoff seedings come mid-April.

Suggs led the Magic with 27 points. Starting center Goga Bitadze tallied 14 points and 10 rebounds.

But contributions were scarce elsewhere. The Magic scored just 31 points in the second half, shot 36.8 percent from the field, and got to the free-throw line only 12 times. They were outscored 60-34 in the paint. Keeping pace with the Knicks' starting unit, which featured Jalen Brunson's 26 points leading a quartet of starters who scored at least 16 points, was too tall a task for the Magic offense.

That diminished the effort of the Magic's defense, which held the NBA's second-best three-point shooting team (by percentage) to just 4-of-15 from three — the lowest single-game number of three-point attempts by any team this season — and forced 19 turnovers. But they led to only 10 Magic points.

"We were getting stops," Mosley said. "We talked about coming out of halftime and getting two or three stops in a row, I think they did a good job. We started with, actually, three stops, but then not being able to convert on them is tough. That's the important piece of having that level of focus. When you do get the stops, you've got to reward yourself in those cases."

Up Next

The Magic close out 2024 on Sunday, December 29 with an afternoon matinee matchup against the Brooklyn Nets. Tipoff is at 3:30 p.m. from the Kia Center.

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