ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The Orlando Magic found their winning formula. Desperation works.
Works wonders, actually.
Facing elimination and clearly wanting no part of it, the Magic might have put together one of their best performances of the season Friday night. They rolled past the Charlotte Hornets 121-90 in an Eastern Conference play-in game, moving into the playoffs for the third straight season and getting a matchup with top-seeded Detroit as their reward.
“When you play with a sense of desperation and urgency, when you know you’re either going home or extending your season, that’s what it looks like,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “There (are) no second chances.”
Mosley is the first coach to lead the Magic to three consecutive playoff appearances since Stan Van Gundy took Orlando there in five straight years. Van Gundy was at Friday’s game as an analyst for Amazon Prime Video.
“I’ve got to be honest. Charlotte is shrinking from the competition,” Van Gundy said on the broadcast, as the Magic were running away in the second quarter — building what became a 35-point lead shortly before halftime. “They look like they don’t want any part of this.”
That’s exactly how Orlando wanted it. It was bully ball, and it worked.
“We’re going to need more of that in the playoffs,” Magic forward Franz Wagner said.
Added Magic forward Paolo Banchero: “We were just relentless with that tonight. … It was just a complete effort from the whole team.”
Charlotte coach Charles Lee, who has engineered quite a turnaround over his first two seasons with the Hornets, said he hopes his team doesn’t forget the lessons that Orlando taught them in this one.
“I hope that this fuels us this offseason, because we’ve done a ton of really good things and gave ourselves an opportunity,” Lee said. “You’re one step away from being in the playoffs. I don’t want to discredit that. But this has got to hurt a little bit.”
Orlando dealt with injuries all season, and going 2-8 in a 10-game stretch late in the regular season could have absolutely sunk any postseason hopes. But the Magic — even with a loss in Wednesday’s play-in opener at Philadelphia — have now won six of their last eight, heading into a no-pressure matchup against heavily favored Detroit.
“We did what we were supposed to do,” Mosley said. “There’s a reason we can be happy tonight. But at the end of the day, we still have more work to do.”
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