Magic lost 116-94 to the Detroit Pistons<\/a> on Sunday in Game 7 of their playoff series, he was asked if they have enough talent to win in the NBA.<\/p>\nSeated on the postgame press conference stage, Banchero hesitated before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to say yes, but this the third straight time we haven\u2019t gotten out of the first round,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if you are going off the last three years, the answer is no. The nice answer is yes, but honestly speaking, I can\u2019t say we\u2019re good enough to be in the finals or the Eastern finals, because the last three years, we\u2019ve had the same result.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s your answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Banchero has every reason to wonder. In the first four games of the series, he averaged 20 points and Franz Wagner scored 17.8 per game as Orlando took a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Wagner, though, sustained a calf injury that kept him out of the last three games. Banchero picked up his pace, averaging 33.3 points in the final three games, including 38 in Game 7, but he never got any help.<\/p>\n
He had 32 points on 12-for-22 (54.5%) shooting through the first three quarters Sunday, but his teammates only scored another 32, making 27% (10-for-32) of their shots. Banchero was 4 for 7 on 3-pointers (57%), while his teammates were 4 for 16 (25%).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just couldn\u2019t find the basket,\u201d Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cWe were playing well on defense, but we couldn\u2019t put the ball in the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
That capped off five horrific quarters of offense that cost Orlando a chance to win the series as the No. 8 seed.<\/p>\n
It started at halftime of Game 6. The Magic held what looked like a comfortable 22-point lead, only to score 19 points in the second half on 10.8% shooting.<\/p>\n
They put up a decent 49 points in the first half on Sunday, then slumped to 15 in the third quarter as the Pistons built a 19-point lead. That\u2019s 83 points in six quarters \u2014 an average of 16.6 points. That\u2019s on pace for 66.4 points for four quarters, which would struggle to win playoff games in the 1950s, much less the 2020s.<\/p>\n
Mosley, though, wasn\u2019t ready to question his roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s time to reflect on this and start thinking about changes we might be able to make,\u201d he said. \u201cToday is about the gratitude for these guys and how they gave us a chance to play in a Game 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey fought and battled the whole way. We just didn\u2019t get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other side of Little Caesars Arena, the Pistons were talking about how they solved the same problem Orlando couldn\u2019t fix. <\/p>\n
Cade Cunningham averaged 32.5 points in the first six games, but wasn\u2019t getting enough help. Sunday, he put up another 32 points, but Tobias Harris added 30 and Jalen Duren had 15 points and 15 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one can ever say (stuff) to me about Tobias Harris,\u201d Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. \u201cHe\u2019s a leader and a great human being, and he\u2019s a high-level competitor. He showed up tonight and did what he did with everything on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris and Duren did what Banchero\u2019s teammates couldn\u2019t do, which is why the Pistons are off to the second round.<\/p>\n
___ <\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT (AP) \u2014 Paolo Banchero wanted to say the diplomatic thing. He just couldn\u2019t do it. Shortly after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[38323,5834,1882,28,5819,108922,53582,5801,37368,7642,2295,14596,92028,139,141,1239,140,5799,110,38617],"class_list":["post-257354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-franz-wagner","tag-j-b-bickerstaff","tag-jalen-duren","tag-jamahl-mosley","tag-mi-state-wire","tag-michigan","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlando-news","tag-paolo-banchero","tag-sports","tag-tobias-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257354","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=257354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}