Charlotte Hornets (16-28, 12th in the Eastern Conference) vs. Orlando Magic (23-19, seventh in the Eastern Conference)<\/p>\n
Orlando, Florida; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE:<\/a> Magic -6.5; over\/under is 229.5<\/p>\n BOTTOM LINE: Desmond Bane and the Orlando Magic host Miles Bridges and the Charlotte Hornets in Eastern Conference play.<\/p>\n The Magic are 5-4 against Southeast Division teams. Orlando is third in the Eastern Conference with 54.4 points per game in the paint led by Franz Wagner averaging 11.4.<\/p>\n The Hornets have gone 11-19 against Eastern Conference opponents. Charlotte is eighth in the NBA with 33.2 defensive rebounds per game led by Bridges averaging 5.2.<\/p>\n The Magic are shooting 46.6% from the field this season, 1.2 percentage points lower than the 47.8% the Hornets allow to opponents. The Hornets average 15.1 made 3-pointers per game this season, 3.2 more made shots on average than the 11.9 per game the Magic allow.<\/p>\n The teams meet for the third time this season. The Hornets won 120-105 in the last matchup on Dec. 27.<\/p>\n TOP PERFORMERS: Bane is averaging 18.9 points and 4.5 assists for the Magic. Paolo Banchero is averaging 23.4 points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n Bridges is averaging 18.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists for the Hornets. Brandon Miller is averaging 18.8 points over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n LAST 10 GAMES: Magic: 5-5, averaging 112.9 points, 45.3 rebounds, 27.7 assists, 7.9 steals and 5.1 blocks per game while shooting 46.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 114.6 points per game.<\/p>\n Hornets: 5-5, averaging 115.1 points, 49.6 rebounds, 26.6 assists, 5.9 steals and 4.3 blocks per game while shooting 46.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 105.3 points.<\/p>\n INJURIES: Magic: Jalen Suggs: day to day (knee), Colin Castleton: out (thumb).<\/p>\n Hornets: Mason Plumlee: out (groin), KJ Simpson: day to day (hip).<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlotte Hornets (16-28, 12th in the Eastern Conference) vs. Orlando Magic (23-19, seventh in the Eastern Conference) Orlando,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[63094,1111,14596,139,141,140,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-127557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-63094","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-nba-basketball","11":"tag-orlando","12":"tag-orlando-headlines","13":"tag-orlando-news","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}