The Magic Have an Opportunity They CAN'T Waste...

Orlando Magic just caught a massive break, and they cannot afford to waste it. With injuries already putting this team to the test, Orlando has a golden opportunity to build some much-needed momentum. But Toronto isn't going to make it easy, and if the Magic can't protect the basketball and knock down open shots, this opportunity could slip right through their fingers. We'll break this all down and more on today's episode of Magic Digest. What's good with it, my kinfolk? It is your big Unk Eric, back again to watch. Another Orlando Magic basketball game. Tonight, we take on the Toronto Raptors. 7:30 Eastern time in Toronto. First game of a two-game series in Toronto, man. And we're just going to go ahead and jump into a user comment right from the start. With Kawhi missing time. Oh, this is from at Mimi underscore magic 407. Big thanks to you and anyone else who leaves a comment, man. I told y'all I see him. And she said, with Kawhi missing time on Toronto, I think we can steal a game or two, given the way Franz played the other night. I believe AB can keep this up. Go magic. And with that, Kawhi Leonard is out against Orlando. I did a... Shorts or reel or whatever YouTube calls it about this. But essentially, we got this notification from Shams Charania that Toronto's Kawhi Leonard is expected to miss a period of weeks due to swelling in his left knee. So sources told ESPN. Now, you could definitely go into that. And find out more if you are interested. But what this means for the next two games, the Toronto Raptors won't be playing with Kawhi Leonard. And for the Orlando Magic, who are dealing with their own injury issues, I mean, come on, man. Right now, we're looking like a MASH team. This is a little bit of relief. Yes, it sucks when you don't play the best and your guys aren't the best to be on that same level. But we're going to take whatever we can get. And if they can stack up some wins while he's out, man, more power to him. But for me, I will say this. The most important thing that I'm looking for early on in this season is not necessarily wins and losses. Because, yes, I do want to see this team come out and win and compete. And... Play at a high level, but I'm very interested in the system, the changes that are being made. What are we doing? We already know this team has talent. We already know that this team has enough talent that you can roll out of basketball and that they can win 40-something games. They can go out there and compete, win strong 40, you know, fight for a play-in. But what about the system is going to change that puts them in a better position that not only are you fighting for your playoff to get in there, but you're fighting for better seating. And then when you're fighting for better seating, you're fighting for a real shot at contention. That's going to be what determines and changes for this Magic team. But I do want to say this is another comment, a.k.a. the comment of the day. Um, just because the system pulls it up like that, but big shout out to my brother at T Millatron. And he came through with his little bit of his wisdom. They said this game is definitely winnable based on the small sample size we've seen from both teams. Barnes is coming off a zero for 12 performance and Kawhi is on his annual regular season sabbatical. Magic could also be out for revenge after getting beat by almost 50 last time they played the Raptors. We need Black to come out hot like the last game and Franz and Baine to get off to better starts due to keep momentum in our favor against a stingy defense. And I mean, it, I could not say it better myself. These are the things that the Magic are going to have to realize. One, you are dealing with a Scottie Barnes that will be out for blood. This is him looking to get his bounce back after his last game where he scored zero points. That is not something that you would expect from a player of Scottie Barnes' caliber. Even he had this to say about his performance. He came out and said, on the defensive end, I feel like I still had a great impact. It is what it is. Go to the next game and try to dominate, which means he's coming for it. This game is not, oh, there's no Kawhi, we're going to lay down and wait. No, he's going to come out ready to go, ready to put the magic on, you know, put it to him. So the magic got to respond in kind. When we look at Scottie Barnes' play style, we see that he likes to do the majority of his work in that mid-range. He loves being on the transition. He likes attacking from that left side in that mid range and getting right to the basket. He's not a big free throw shooter. He loves to run that pick and roll and get to the middie. He loves that middie or try to get all the way downhill to the basket. He has a very high usage rate. You know, they're going to put the ball in his hands. You know, they like to play a lot of de facto point barns. So it's going to be very interesting to see how he comes out and how the magic can actually limit him. When you look at his coach, his coach had this to say. Like his coach is not expecting another game like that. He said, this is not going to happen again to Scottie. Scottie is going to make those shots next time. And this is what I say to Magic fans. Right now is the moment where we're waiting on certain guys to continue to show exactly what they mean to this Orlando Magic team. Primarily, Anthony Black and Franz. They're going to be the guys that are leading this new offense. And basically... We'll be the stewards of how the season will go over the next couple of weeks. We know that we're looking at Paolo missing four to six weeks with that high ankle sprain. We know that Jalen Suggs will be re-evaluated in two weeks with that bone bruise in his knee from the non-contact injury. And when they say re-evaluated in two weeks, that just means, you know, eventually they'll get back to looking at him and seeing where he is. But again, I want to thank you guys for the comments. Here's another comment. This was from at A-O-U-G-H-I. I don't know how to say it all in one. A-O-U-G. But big love to you, man. No disrespect. Big love to you for leaving a comment. And I thought he made this very salient point about Paolo and Franz. He said, I would strongly suggest not to make it a question of Paolo or Franz anymore. That isn't a good start for the debate. The question to ask is Paolo versus the team. Are the others reaching better to their potential if the ball can just go much quicker, including Franz, including everyone else? Or do we want Paolo to have the ball even more in his hands and he scores 50? Would that be the play style with the highest ceiling? It's still long in the season. The coach only started. So we have to wait to find a recipe for team Success. And I agree. It's going to be about how Sean Sweeney finds a way to make these two work together. We know the ways that in the past, people have looked at them occupying the same space, not being great shooters, Paolo not playing as fast and decisive as maybe Franz is. But now we're going to see, I think this is going to give Franz, that chance, if he can stay healthy, to really establish the offense. It looks like Coach Sweeney has been wanting it to go with him playing point, Franz, and really being in control of the offense from the beginning. I do want to see Anthony Black come in and provide more creation. I don't want to just see him. He can hit open shots. Cool. If he could play defense, cool, but I would love to see him, especially with no subs, be in that secondary playmaker who not only can score for himself, but get others involved. We're talking about Desmond Bane. We need to see him improve on that three-point percentage. I mean, after the third game, it started to prove a little bit, but he's still under 30%. We know that Desmond Bain is a much better shooter than that. I want to see him back up in the high 30s, close to 40%. Last year, he was close to a 50-40-90 season. That's the type of performance that I need to see from Desmond Bain. Tristan Da Silva, another guy. I appreciate you letting it fly. And he's sitting there with a 38.5 three-point percentage. He has been the guy who has been unafraid to let it go. And with that, I say... Keep going, young man. Oh, man. Tristan, the barge, the silver surfer, whatever they want to call you, let it fly. Because we need somebody to make these teams accountable. So they can't just pack the paint on Franz and keep AB and Franz from getting to the rim. We need somebody on that three-point line to keep them accountable. We definitely need that. Got another. You know, comment from a user at Greg Perez, 21-24. Yes, we need an aggressive Franz, plus A.B. and Bane need to keep it up too. And with that, I ask you, what decides this Magic Raptors game? Will it be A, protecting the ball? Because Toronto is incredible on the defensive end, especially causing turnovers. And we see so far that this season, the Magic have Given up a lot of turnovers in all three of these games. If they cannot control that and keep that down, keep that number under 15, it's going to be a long night against this Toronto team. Will it be making open threes? We've seen that it's been just a lot of missing hittable shots. You know, Desmond Bane missed like a bunch of shots before that end of the game where he kind of evened it out a little bit. But I just want to see. More guys being able to hit the open shot. Or will it be Anthony Black's impact? Another game back. He should be in much better shape. You know, he's still working into a better shape. But whatever it is, A, B, or C, I need you guys to let me know down below in the comments, man. It's your big gunk, Eric. I'm going to get out of here so I can go watch the game. And we're going to come back on the other end and talk about it, all right? Until next time, it's Magic Digest.