All-Defensive guard Jalen Suggs could only watch from the bench when the Magic mounted a 17-point comeback against Denver on Saturday night inside Kia Center.
Described often as the heart and soul of Orlando‘s locker room, Suggs missed his sixth straight game because of a left hip bruise that’s sidelined him the past two weeks.
Prior to Orlando’s thrilling 1-point victory over three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets, the Magic had gone 4-6 without Suggs on the court, missing both his physical style of defense and energy-providing offense.
But Saturday night was different.
Jamahl Mosley‘s squad received a career-high 38 points from Anthony Black, 15 of 24 points from Desmond Bane in the fourth quarter (including the go-ahead free throws), 18 points from Wendell Carter Jr. and 17 off the bench from Tristan da Silva to overcome Jokic’s 34 points, 21 rebounds and 12 assists that marked his 180th career triple-double and 16th of the season.
Suggs liked what he saw from his Magic teammates as they split the regular-season series with Denver.
“It’s nice to watch the boys, nice to get this little perspective, nice to take care of my body and get everything right,” he said in the locker room after Orlando’s 127-126 victory. “But I feel good.”
Suggs has been listed as doubtful on the team’s initial injury report for the majority of the six games he’s missed, indicating there’s been a chance, although small, he could have played before ultimately being ruled out.
Asked how close he is to returning, Suggs wasn’t sure.
“I’m doing good,” he said. “I don’t know how close, but I just keep preparing myself to be on the court with my brothers.”
Suggs was listed as doubtful again on the team’s initial injury report for Monday’s game at Toronto. Reserve center Goga Bitadze (left knee strain), who’s missed the last three games, is considered questionable.
The reason the Magic have remained afloat without not only Suggs but also forward Franz Wagner (who will his ninth consecutive contest Monday due to a left high ankle sprain) has been largely thanks to the play of Black.
In the last eight games while starting, Black has averaged 20.9 points on 42.9% shooting from 3-point range with 5.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.3 steals in 34.8 minutes per contest.
His performance against Denver marked the ninth game of the season scoring 20-plus points, something he had done just nine times combined across the first two years of his career. He became the 23rd player in Magic history to hit 7-plus 3s in a game.
“AB’s one of the best defenders in the league,” Suggs said. “He’ll be All-Defense this year so it’s nice we don’t have a whole lot of drop-off from the guard play.”
Added Magic forward Paolo Banchero in the locker room: “AB having a huge night, he carried us offensively.”
The Magic believe the outcome of Saturday’s game is more reflective of the type of team they can be rather than how they performed in a 15-point loss to then-10-win Charlotte the night prior.
Orlando contributed its lackluster effort against the Hornets to a combination of coming off the team’s first western trip of the season, a myriad of key injuries and spending Christmas with family before heading into a back-to-back.
“Even though we weren’t satisfied with the result [on Friday], I wasn’t like, ‘The house is on fire,’” veteran forward Jonathan Isaac said in the locker room. “The Wizards beat somebody by 20 [Friday]. It’s a part of the league. You don’t want to get bit by that. You want to be above it but you know there’s a human nature side of it, and [Saturday] was our standard of basketball.
“And we still have such a ways to go,” he added.
The Magic head to Toronto to open a three-game trip Monday as the team plays five of its next six away.
Entering Sunday’s slate of games, the Magic (18-14) sat fourth in the East and one spot ahead of the Raptors (18-14), who hosted the Warriors in the afternoon.
Orlando wants its upcoming trip to look more like the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game when the Magic scored 43 points in 12 minutes against Denver (22-9) rather than Friday’s outcome when the team notched just 28 points in the final frame against Charlotte.
Regardless of who returns from injury when, the Magic know they have to keep up their energy.
“It’s just our spirit,” Bane said. “We can’t get down on ourselves if a team goes on a run or you’re missing shots, missing assignments. That’s something that we’ve got to improve on: turning the page faster and not getting so wrapped up in ourselves. But [instead] get wrapped up in the team, get wrapped up in what we need to do this possession and the next possession to win the possession, to win the game. That’ll help keep our spirits more even-keeled throughout the course of a game.”
Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com
Up next …
Magic at Raptors
When: 7:30 p.m., Monday, Scotiabank Arena
TV: FanDuel Sports Network Florida