What: Charlotte Hornets (2-2) (1-0 home) vs Orlando Magic (1-4) (0-2 away)
When: 7:00 pm Eastern
Where: Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
Game Lines: Hornets +2.5, Hornets money line +130, O/U 241.5
Injuries:
Hornets: Brandon Miller-out (shoulder), Josh Green-out (shoulder), Grant Williams-out (knee)
Magic: Mo Wagner-out (knee)
The Magic went out in the summer and traded a pretty significant haul to get Desmond Bane in the hopes that he would add some much needed punch to their offense. Through five games, little to no punch has been added.
The Magic are 27th in offensive rating so far this season, and they haven’t boasted the dominant defense of year’s past to make up for that so far. After winning their season opener over the Heat, they’ve lost four straight to the Hawks, Bulls, 76ers, and Pistons. They’ve given up at least 110 points in every game and at least 135 in each of the last two. Everything is bad right now.
It’d be unreasonable to assume that the Magic are going to be this bad all season, but it’s also impossible to guess when it’ll start to turn around. The Paolo Banchero/Franz Wagner duo has given the Hornets fits in the past, and now they have Desmond Bane who will theoretically normalize and start making bunches of threes, but none of that has happened yet. The only two players to be any sort of offensive rhythm are Jalen Suggs and Anthony Black. Black has been pretty low usage but has been efficient with his shots and has gotten to the line more than he ever has in his career. Suggs has shot a blistering 65.2% from the field and 53.8% from three so far. Those are practically Kon Knueppel numbers.
The Hornets had a rough go of it in Miami in their last outing, but there’s no need to overreact. Let’s let that kind of game become more of a norm before we start drawing conclusions from it. Tonight is a good opportunity to right the ship against a team that’s very good on paper but hasn’t been playing like it yet.
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