They fell behind by as many as 33 following intermission despite Orlando missing Paolo Banchero due to an illness.
The Magic (33-26) hardly blinked with their leading scorer out of action.
Franz Wagner scored 21 points, 17 of which came during the first half, and older brother Moritz Wagner added 16 for Orlando, which has won six of its last eight contests.
The Magic also avenged a pair of blowout losses in Brooklyn earlier this season, a 124-104 defeat on Nov. 14 and a 129-101 shellacking on Dec. 2.
“I thought it was an important game for us, knowing how the last two games went against them,” said Franz Wagner. “I was pretty happy with how everybody came out focused for the whole game.”
Ollie wasn’t buying into Brooklyn potentially benefiting from Banchero’s absence, especially after his team gave up 29 points off turnovers and shot just under 40 percent from the field overall.
“They’re all missed opportunities when you lose one,” Ollie said. “These are NBA players. They’re pros. They’ve got a great team over there without Paolo and … we just expect guys to step up. Unfortunately we didn’t step up enough tonight to get a win.”

Bridges certainly didn’t.
The NBA’s Iron Man, playing in his 450th consecutive game, committed three of the Nets’ 20 turnovers in 29 lackluster minutes to go with his shooting woes.
“I feel like when I’m open I’m going to take threes,” Bridges said. “They all feel good. It’s just not going in. I’ll continue to take what the defense gives me and stay aggressive. The only way to get out of a slump is to keep shooting.”
He’ll get that chance Thursday night, when the Nets host 10th-place Atlanta in the first of two key showdowns in Brooklyn.
With Tuesday’s defeat, the Nets slipped four games behind the Hawks (26-32) for the final spot in…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply