The only negative from a fantastic 3-1 run on the west coast that featured tight wins over the Clippers and Lakers in L.A. was point guard Jalen Suggs being forced out of the lineup. The Magic’s floor general was ruled out with a back issue that was first said to be spasms and then altered to indicate a strain. <\/p>\n
Suggs sat the final three games after starting the first game after the All-Star break in Sacramento but will return to the starting lineup against Houston.\u00a0It remains to be seen if head coach Jamahl Mosley employ a minutes’ restriction on his playing time.<\/p>\n
Orlando will be playing its first home game since Feb. 11, when it lost in surprising fashion to the short-handed Bucks. The Magic continue to lead the Southeast Division, widening their lead this week to a full game over a Miami Heat team it has defeated all four times they\u2019ve played. The Magic rank seventh in the East, a half-game behind the Philadelphia 76ers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suggs missed his 23rd game of the season against the Lakers on Tuesday and missed extensive time with hip and knee injuries after being injured in the NBA Cup semifinal in Las Vegas on Dec. 13.<\/p>\n
Suggs played 20 minutes in the 131-94 blowout of Sacramento on Thursday, hitting three 3-pointers and adding three rebounds and three assists.<\/p>\n
The Magic ruled him out just before the double-OT win over the Suns on Saturday, didn\u2019t play him against the Clippers on Sunday and have to see whether not being forced to travel out of the L.A. area will aid the cause in getting him back. The team will fly back to Orlando post-game but won\u2019t take the floor again until Thursday, welcoming the Houston Rockets into Kia Center for the first home following the All-Star break. That game is listed among the five most important games for Orlando going forward.<\/p>\n
Suggs has played in 34 of a possible 56 games this season. All his appearances have come in starts, and he\u2019s averaging 13.9 points and career-bests of 4.0 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.9 steals. Because of the playing time restrictions, Suggs is averaging just 26.5 minutes per game, second-lowest of his career and below what he averaged as a rookie.<\/p>\n
Suggs made a full recovery following the MCL contusion and played a season-high 34:54 in a 116-108 loss against the Bucks on Feb. 11, registering 16 points and 10 assists for his second double-double. He went for 15 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in putting together his only triple-double on Feb. 5 in a blowout of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Suggs\u2019 7.4 assists, 4.9 rebounds, 2.6 steals and 1.7 blocks in February all represent his best averages for any given month, and he\u2019s shot 38.3 percent from 3-point range (18-for-47). If he can overcome this back trouble and put together a strong March, Orlando could be well-positioned to make a run at a top-six seed in order to avoid being stuck in the play-in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The only negative from a fantastic 3-1 run on the west coast that featured tight wins over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-170769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170769","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=170769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}