Explore the Orlando Magic’s playoff journey, coaching challenges, and rising stars as they navigate unexpected twists in the postseason entering Game 7.
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Video Transcript
To now you’re gonna start looking around and saying, if they lose this, and I don’t know how they come back from this, down, after being up 3-1 and going on the road after the way they performed.
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If they get blown out, I, I think there’s a chance that you’re gonna make a significant move.
And if you don’t trade Wagner or Banchero, then you’re looking at the head coach and saying that maybe he is the one on the way out.
It’s so interesting because Mosley Look, man, Jamal Mosley entered into this playoffs and it was like, yeah, we know he’s getting fired once this series is over because Orlando was supposed to be dispatched pretty easily by Detroit in this series.
And with the upset looking likelier and likelier, holding a 3-1 series lead, people were like, “Man, maybe Mosley’s really figured this thing out.”
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You know, this still is a young, exciting core, right?
Paolo Banchero’s just 23, Franz Wagner’s just 24.
You know, the, the, th- these guys might have something here.
Maybe this season will, you know, not reach the full heights that people wanted, ’cause if you remember, the Orlando Magic were supposed to compete to win the East, okay?
And that’s what made them up in the series so fascinating where preseason they had a much higher expectations actually than Detroit.
But this is And I’m, and I just bring this up because expectations change.
LeBron and the Lakers went from, guys, i, I mean, if they win two games, it’s an accomplishment, to if they lose this series to Houston, it’s the biggest disgrace in LeBron’s career because they were up 3-0.
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For Orlando, if you were to say, “Hey, they forced a game seven,” before the series, yes, that’s a great accomplishment.
They were up 3-1, they had a game six at home with a 22-point halftime lead, and it was gone quite quickly in the fourth quarter.
They scored 19 second half points, and there’s a lot of finger-pointing that’s about to happen again.
And for Paolo specifically, to have the best playoff game of your career, 45, 9 and 7 on 55, 55, you know, that’s a real moment.
17 points on 4 of 20 shooting in the next game, 0 of 9 from three, that’s a tough one