{"id":374851,"date":"2025-12-28T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374851\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T22:22:08","slug":"orlando-magic-return-to-road-after-comeback-win-vs-denver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/374851\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic return to road after comeback win vs. Denver"},"content":{"rendered":"

All-Defensive guard Jalen Suggs<\/a> could only watch from the bench when\u00a0the Magic<\/a> mounted a 17-point comeback against Denver<\/a> on Saturday night inside Kia Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Described often as the heart and soul of Orlando<\/a>\u2018s locker room, Suggs missed his sixth straight game because of a left hip bruise that\u2019s sidelined him the past two weeks.<\/p>\n

Prior to Orlando\u2019s thrilling 1-point victory over three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets<\/a>, the Magic had gone 4-6 without Suggs on the court, missing both his physical style of defense and energy-providing offense.<\/p>\n

But Saturday night was different.<\/p>\n

Jamahl Mosley<\/a>\u2018s 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\u2019s 34 points, 21 rebounds and 12 assists that marked his 180th career triple-double and 16th of the season.<\/p>\n

Suggs liked what he saw from his Magic teammates as they split the regular-season series with Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to watch the boys, nice to get this little perspective, nice to take care of my body and get everything right,\u201d he said in the locker room after Orlando\u2019s 127-126 victory. \u201cBut I feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suggs has been listed as doubtful on the team\u2019s initial injury report for the majority of the six games he\u2019s missed, indicating there\u2019s been a chance, although small, he could have played before ultimately being ruled out.<\/p>\n

Asked how close he is to returning, Suggs wasn\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing good,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how close, but I just keep preparing myself to be on the court with my brothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suggs was listed as doubtful again on the team\u2019s initial injury report for Monday\u2019s game at Toronto. Reserve center Goga Bitadze (left knee strain), who\u2019s missed the last three games, is considered questionable.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAB\u2019s one of the best defenders in the league,\u201d Suggs said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be All-Defense this year so it\u2019s nice we don\u2019t have a whole lot of drop-off from the guard play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Magic forward Paolo Banchero in the locker room: \u201cAB having a huge night, he carried us offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Magic believe the outcome of Saturday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Orlando contributed its lackluster effort against the Hornets to a combination of coming off the team\u2019s first western trip of the season, a myriad of key injuries and spending Christmas with family before heading into a back-to-back.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we weren\u2019t satisfied with the result [on Friday], I wasn\u2019t like, \u2018The house is on fire,’\u201d veteran forward Jonathan Isaac said in the locker room. \u201cThe Wizards beat somebody by 20 [Friday]. It\u2019s a part of the league. You don\u2019t want to get bit by that. You want to be above it but you know there\u2019s a human nature side of it, and [Saturday] was our standard of basketball.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we still have such a ways to go,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Magic head to Toronto to open a three-game trip Monday as the team plays five of its next six away.<\/p>\n

Entering Sunday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Orlando wants its upcoming trip to look more like the fourth quarter of Saturday\u2019s game when the Magic scored 43 points in 12 minutes against Denver (22-9) rather than Friday\u2019s outcome when the team notched just 28 points in the final frame against Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Regardless of who returns from injury when, the Magic know they have to keep up their energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just our spirit,\u201d Bane said. \u201cWe can\u2019t get down on ourselves if a team goes on a run or you\u2019re missing shots, missing assignments. That\u2019s something that we\u2019ve got to improve on:\u00a0 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\u2019ll help keep our spirits more even-keeled throughout the course of a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Up next \u2026<\/p>\n

Magic at Raptors<\/p>\n

When: 7:30 p.m., Monday, Scotiabank\u00a0Arena<\/p>\n

TV:\u00a0FanDuel Sports Network Florida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-Defensive guard Jalen Suggs could only watch from the bench when\u00a0the Magic mounted a 17-point comeback against Denver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2558,355,11950,5262,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-374851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-orlando-magic","11":"tag-social","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}