{"id":446494,"date":"2026-11-03T21:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T21:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/446494\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T21:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T21:42:08","slug":"jalen-suggs-focused-on-work-as-orlando-magic-hit-road-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/446494\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Suggs focused on work as Orlando Magic hit road again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magic<\/a> guard Jalen Suggs<\/a> could only watch from the bench as Orlando<\/a> dropped its fourth straight home game to open the season under new coach Sean Sweeney<\/a> on Monday night.<\/p>\n

It was a familiar position for the sixth-year pro, who\u2019s been plagued by injuries throughout his career, with his latest being a right knee bone bruise suffered Oct. 25 at New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my path,\u201d Suggs told the Orlando Sentinel before the Magic fell 103-94 to the Wizards<\/a> at Kia Center<\/a>. \u201cI mean, I can\u2019t complain about it. So, it\u2019s the same process for me whether I\u2019m playing or not. I wake up and I come to work. And for me, that\u2019s fun. I enjoy that. Because I\u2019m getting better. It\u2019s nothing different for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a little frustration,\u201d Suggs added. \u201cI\u2019d love to be playing, but I (am not) complaining about (anything).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic would love for him to be playing, too.<\/p>\n

The same could be said for Paolo Banchero (right high ankle sprain), Noah Penda (partially torn right hamstring), Jonathan Isaac (left knee injury management), Izaiyah Nelson (left ankle injury recovery) and Anthony Black, who sat out the second night of Orlando\u2019s back-to-back to manage his the right ankle sprain he is still continuing to recover from.<\/p>\n

Without those six available, the Magic lacked key depth, offensive firepower and the defensive intensity required to slow down Washington\u2019s quartet of Anthony Davis, Trae Young, Kyshawn George and No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa.<\/p>\n

Davis shot 12-for-17 from the floor to total 27 points and nine rebounds in 34 minutes, George knocked down four 3-pointers to finish with 22 points, and Dybantsa notched 21 points with five rebounds and three steals. Young dished out nine assists with 15 points.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Franz Wagner led Orlando with 24 points and Desmond Bane totaled 20, but five others ended in single digits. The Magic overall shot 11-for-39 from 3-point range (28%) and turned the ball over 18 times for 22 Washington points.<\/p>\n

While Wagner and Bane shot a combined 18-for-35 (51.4%) from the field against the Wizards, all other Magic players beyond those two shot a combined 19-for-45 from the floor (42.2%) for the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are shorthanded,\u201d Magic center Nikola Vucevic said in the locker room after game. \u201cThat\u2019s not an excuse but we\u2019ve got to figure some stuff out with having guys out how to make life easier, especially for Franz and Desmond, because they\u2019re getting definitely more pressured.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic will have to figure something out fast as they head back out on the road this week. Orlando opens a four-game West Coast road trip Thursday at Phoenix and will make stops at Golden State, Sacramento and Utah.<\/p>\n

While Black is expected back after not playing on the second night of the back-to-back, Suggs won\u2019t be re-evaluated until Monday. Banchero is less than two weeks removed from suffering his high ankle sprain that typically takes four to six weeks to rehabilitate.<\/p>\n

Suggs didn\u2019t have an update on a potential timeline when asked on Monday night. He was also unsure if he\u2019ll travel with the team this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know, to be honest,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my process has been the exact same as it was before camp started \u2014 making sure I handle my business every day, making sure I\u2019m watching games, making sure I come in, get my work in (and) making sure I\u2019m improving every day so that when the time is right, I come out and I\u2019m ready to hoop.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Magic know they can\u2019t wait around for reinforcements to come save them from a 2-5 start to open the regular season. It\u2019s up to them to fix their own problems, which include poor 3-point shooting, a lack of rebounding and a failure to take care of the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to continue to work on it, figure it out and just move on,\u201d Vucevic said. \u201cEvery team goes through it at some point throughout the year. It\u2019s tough when it happens at the beginning, especially when you\u2019re trying to work some things out and have a new coach and all that, but it\u2019s part of it. It\u2019s on us to figure it out and I think we still have enough to do that. So, hopefully we can regroup and do a better job on this trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could also help Orlando that its schedule eases up some this week. The team\u2019s next five games, besides Saturday\u2019s at Golden State (5-3), feature four teams that only had one win as of Tuesday night. Phoenix (1-4), Sacramento (1-6), Utah (1-6) and Milwaukee (1-6) had a combined record of 4-22 after Monday.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the strength of the opponent, the Magic believe they\u2019re close to piecing together the puzzle on both ends of the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times it looks really good where we know what we\u2019re doing and we\u2019re executing really well,\u201d Vucevic said. \u201cAt (other) times, not so much. And I think when it\u2019s not really going our way, we get a little hesitant. We overthink things. But I feel like in most games we\u2019ve lost, except for like the one in Toronto where we got blown out, we\u2019re kind of like right there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve still stuck with it. We still fought all the way. We just came up short, and we\u2019ve just got to continue to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

What: Magic at Suns<\/p>\n

When: 9 p.m., Thursday, Mortgage Matchup Center<\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0MagicTV 27, DAZN (streaming)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magic guard Jalen Suggs could only watch from the bench as Orlando dropped its fourth straight home game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,2295,139,141,1239,140,109,76046,110],"class_list":["post-446494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nba","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-magic","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446494","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=446494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}