30 Points Not Enough For Wagner

Photo: Special to the NY Beacon

By Samori Benjamin

The Orlando Magic fell to the New York Knicks on Tuesday night 121-106 at Madison Square Garden. The game was also an Emirates NBA Cup Tournament game where going in, a spot for the quarterfinal round was at stake. The Knicks and Magic were in the same group, Group A, in this tournament, and the winner was in position to win the group and move on to the knockout round. However, even with the loss, Orlando will still move on to the quarterfinal-round of the tournament. They qualify for the Wild Card spot because they have the highest point differential in the tournament among the teams who finished second in their group in the Eastern Conference. The other two teams out of the Eastern Conference to advance to the knockout stage are the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks.

After losing their best player Paolo Banchero to injury in the first couple weeks of the season and beginning the season 3-6, the Magic had won 12 of their last 13 games going into Madison Square Garden. The Knicks were up by 30 points for much of the second half to the point where it was hard to believe the Magic were nearly unbeatable over the previous three weeks. “16 turnovers for 32 points,” Orlando Head Coach Jahmal Mosley said after the game to explain his team’s sudden stinker of a performance. “That’s what happened. We coughed it up and gave them easy baskets. It’s hard to win a game when you turn the ball over 16 times for 32 points, just giving points away and they got all easy baskets in that situation.” 

On top of that Orlando let six Knicks players score in double figures.  “As they turned up the pressure and turned up the heat and we didn’t see the ball go through a couple of times I think that changed our demeanor a little bit. Overall, this is a great experience for us to have, to go through, to play in the Garden in this environment against a very good basketball team. Now we got to be able to bounce back.” Mosley said.”

The Wagner brothers Franz and Mo scored 30 and 20 points apiece for the Magic against the Knicks. It was not enough for a team that had been on an impressive surge. “I think we didn’t have our usual effort and physicality on defense. They got into a rhythm, and we really didn’t at any point of the game offensively,” Franz Wagner said postgam. 

Orlando will play at Milwaukee next Tuesday night for the right to go to make the Semifinals of the NBA Cup which will be played in Las Vegas December 14^th. “We earned our way into the quarterfinal. Obviously not our best game today but that’s why you play every minute in the other games. It feels weird after a game like this to advance but yea, that’s just part of it.”