Something Strange Is Going On With the Magic...

Something strange is going on with the Orlando Magic, where one night this team looks like it's finally figuring things out, and the next, we're right back to the same frustrating problems. Desmond Bain and Franz Wagner have shown flashes, Anthony Black and Tristan Thuiziot are stepping up big time, but the inconsistency is becoming impossible to ignore. So what's really going on with this Magic team, and how does Sean Sweeney fix it? We'll break all this down and more on today's episode of Magic Digest, what's good with it. It's your big gunk Eric, back in the... building. After a couple of games, we had the win in the first NBA Cup game for the Orlando Magic against the Toronto Raptors. Follow that up by a loss at home against the Boston Celtics. And we're going to get into both of those games and break them down. Let's take a real quick look at the NBA Cup East Group A standings. That is the group that the Magic are in with the Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, Brooklyn Nets, and Milwaukee Bucks Right now, after one game of the NBA Cup, the Magic and Detroit Pistons are both in the win column, but Detroit is up with a point differential of 16 versus 7. And if we take a look at the contract, a very interesting contract over on Kalshi. If we take a look at that NBA Cup East group winner. We can see right now, Detroit is favored to win. And this market is brought to you by the good folks over at Kalshi on Kalshi. You're trading directly against other users, not the house like traditional sports books. You buy yes or no contracts on the outcome of events across sports, politics, or even the weather. For example, this contract right here on the NBA Cup East Group A winner. If you want to throw your money behind Orlando Magic and put $25, the Magic win. The NBA Cup Eastern Group A, you can get a payout of $55.90. That's doubling your money, man. Big thanks to the good folks over at Calshi. On Calshi, if you're interested, use the link in the description and pin comment and the code DIGESTNBA to get $55 added to your account instantly when you trade your first 25. Big thanks. To our good friends over at Calshi for sponsoring Magic Digest. As we go keep on getting in, we're just going to talk about the two games that the Magic had. Where they respond to Toronto, then fall to Boston. First and foremost, we'll look at the Toronto game and see that what the Magic did well in coming back. To play Toronto after getting blown out and destroyed in the previous game. We see Desmond Bain with 28 points, Franz with 26, and Wendell with 20, you know. Jace Richardson with a game high plus 26 with his four and six, you know, Jamal Cain even played well off of the bench with 13 points going three of three from the three point line. It was just an overall good game, especially from the starting five defensively. They were doing everything but slowing down Scottie Barnes. And we'll talk about that more here a little bit later. If we take a look at the Boston game. That we can see where they took the loss at home 97 to 108. I'll say this. Neither team played an amazing game. This was almost closer to that type of grind it out. Uh, playoff game, the intensity maybe wasn't there, but it was a very highly focused game where a lot of role players got involved, especially with the Celtics, even with the magic, you know, we got some guys that get in there and kind of turn it up a notch. Tristan Da Silva. We're just going to need more and we already see where the Magic is lacking with injuries to start this season is in these situations specifically like the Boston game. And when we look at their upcoming games, the Magic started with one of the toughest schedules out there. I mean, if you're going to be honest and look at their schedule, those first couple of games, even fully healthy They could probably still be at the same record. Like if you came back and said after, you know, playing Toronto twice, the Knicks, that they would be, you know, they would have these losses. I wouldn't be that disappointed because I know how tough this Eastern Conference is going to be. If we look at tonight's game against the Wizards, which is about to happen in a few hours, you know, if they can pull out the victory, but we'll talk about that because there's some news that I just got that we'll have to talk about. But we can see after that they go out west to play the Suns, who have been pretty disappointing. The Warriors, man, as bad as people thought they They were going to be that young kid, Klay. is playing and as long as you got Steph you got a chance to win the game then the Kings and the Jazz hopefully you know if I'm just being presumptive if they could come back three and one off of that road trip out west then that gives you some good energy before you get some you start to get some guys back so that is just My hope when we look at what this team could be doing going forward. But we got to talk about some inconsistencies. We just got to talk about it. And it's primarily Desmond Bane and Franz Wagner. They have just been too inconsistent. It's been here today, gone tomorrow. And I know this is just the start of the season. We're not going to harp on it too long. But if we just take a look at two games. The Toronto, the second Toronto game and the Boston game. You can see kind of what we're looking at. We're looking at Desmond Bain in that Toronto game. We're talking about a guy come out 28 points, two rebounds, but he had six assists. He was 50% from the three point line, hitting six of his 12 threes, hit all of his free throws, had a few too many, had a few too many turnovers. I love to keep the turnovers down, but we're talking about a plus 10 or a 10 plus minus with him on the floor. Now, if you transpose that against, well, let's take a look at the shot chart because you'll be able to see exactly how he was getting to it. Primarily, he was hitting those threes. He started off the game crazy, hitting a bunch of three-pointers off the rip. Got some shots in the lane for a couple of points and he hit his free throws. And that's the type of Desmond Bain that we need. We need shooting. We need him to be attacking. Even if he's not hitting everything at the rim, we definitely need him to continue attacking. Now, the problem is, is when we look at the Boston game and we see, yes, he still was hitting his three point shots, 19 points total, five of nine from the three point line. But we see that negative, the same way he was a plus 10 the previous game, he was a negative 10 this game, one assist. He has too many moments where he is just inactive. And not saying that he's not, but he's not being a force in the offense in any way, shape, or form. And I apologize with the money that he's making, the importance of him on this team. Especially with the injuries that this team is dealing with. He's going to have to come out and be more. It's just, it really is. He had this kind of last year. We started off slow before he rounded out in the gear and was pretty consistent. We just need that consistency every night. We take a look at Franz. It's kind of been the same thing. It's a tale of two tapes. If we look at him in that Toronto game, we're talking about 26 points, 11 assists. Still not great with the three-pointer going two of seven, but hitting eight of nine from the free throw line. Cutting down on the turnovers, four turnovers to 11 assists. So it definitely is good that he's staying attacking, but we need this mentality every night. And if the shot don't fall, then you have to be able to do other things offensively. When we go to that Boston game, 5 of 20 from the field is just not going to cut it. Everybody has bad games. Everybody has bad games, but he had that one three-pointer and he looked shaky. He looks so uncertain when he's taking the three this season. I get it that he is not a knockdown three-point shooter, but he looks uncomfortable taking the three, even when he knocks it down. It's like, oh, like the hope and pray that I can make it instead of just feeling confident and stepping up and hitting that. Now, again. If we just look at. What we need from him field goal wise, I'm definitely glad that the assists are high. The assists are still high, but his field goal percentage, we need him to keep that up. That game against Boston, it was like he was trying. He was getting to the lane. He missed a lot of shots at the lane with their defense. Keta is not necessarily a... And a massive shot blocker, but they were just able to put enough body on him that even when he got all the way to the lane, he was not able to finish those shots as efficiently as he usually is. But again, I am glad that we're seeing the assist rate go up. If we could keep that assist rate at a 7 to 8, I mean, from Franz, if he could get up to... An average of 24 to 25 points a game with seven plus assists, four to five plus rebounds. I mean, I don't feel like that's a lot to ask. We want to keep going out, giving out shots to a couple of guys who did play well in that game. Anthony Black and Tristan Da Silva did step up. And play well, you know, Anthony Black with the 23 points, eight rebounds, three assists to four turnovers. This is my thing so far that I've been seeing with Anthony Black. I love the development and it looks like he's going to keep developing and growing, especially as a scorer. But look at me, look at me, zoom in on my face right here. I need y'all to focus. He has got to get better with on-ball pressure. I've seen a lot of games where if somebody just pressures him, especially at the half court, he either is trying to dribble past it and fumbling it or picking it up too soon, being unconfident, and just putting himself in a bad position, especially in the corners where he's easy to trap. He's just got to be better with on-ball pressure. I just want to see him work on nothing but his dribbling and on-ball pressure to get to his spots. To get to where he wants to go to be able to create and to be able to, you know, help this offense move smoothly. If he's going to be a lead playmaker for this team, he just has to be better on the ball, not giving up bad turnovers or just being shaky when pressure is applied. Tristan Da Silva, big shots out to him. He's hitting the three. You know, he's doing what they ask of him. Five from eight from the three-point line, grabbing 10 rebounds. I mean, love that, love that. We're going to get up out of here, but when it comes to the game tonight against the Washington Wizards, did get this from Jason Beattie over at the Orlando Sentinel. He put this on tweet, that tonight Magic Guard Anthony Black He's out versus the Wizards. It's the second night of a back-to-back. We do know that he is still recovering from that preseason injury that he was dealing with that kept him out a few games. And when we look at the shot chart, I mean, the magic injuries, we could just add him to this list. Isaiah Nelson, Jalen Suggs, Jonathan Isaac, Noah Pender, Paolo. He's just out for the night. So we're not going to add him to this list on the injury report, but tonight he won't be there, That depth. Let's talk about the depth. I put this line up together. We may see something different from Sean Sweeney, but you're running out there at guard. You're starting five. I'm guessing you're starting five tonight. It'll be Jace, Desmond, Tristan, Franz, and Wendell. And you are incredibly thin after that. I mean, really, with no Anthony Black, that means that Javon Carter or Alex Morales will have to get, will probably have to get some time. Jamal Cain will do a lot of heavy lifting on that second lineup. You're probably going to have to play some combination of Wendell, Vuce, and Goga as your bigs. It's just, you're going to have to get all three in the game. You just don't have any other guys over 6'8". It's just going to have to be those guys. Playing your bigs, but that leads me to this comment. Shout out to at Aurora Dreams, who had this to say on my video about Jeff Weltman being under fire. One thing that has been consistent over the last few years is injuries. What bothers me is it seems the front office hasn't really made role players pick up to compensate. Our main guys have gotten hurt every year. We need guys that step up. And that's the truth. It's got to be the great teams. Injuries happen to every team. The great teams injuries can happen to and they can still put together some sort of offense, some sort of defense, some sort of mechanism that keeps the team rolling. And that's what we got to see from that's what we got to see from this Orlando Magic team. So I'm going to get out of here. I want you guys to let me know what is the biggest problem for the Magic right now at this moment? Is it A, the turnovers? B, injuries, or C, shooting? Drop that down below in the comments for me. I'm going to get up out of here. Go watch this Wizards game. We're going to wish the team good luck on their home floor tonight. It's your big uncle, Eric. I'm going to get out of here. Until next time, with Magic Digest.