The Orlando Magic defeated the Phoenix Suns tonight at the Amway Center 128-114 at the Amway Center in Orlando.
Aaron Gordon had a massive scoring night, scoring a game high 32 points, including shooting 13 for 15 and going 5 for 5 from behind the 3-point line.
“I felt pretty relaxed out there.” said Gordon, “My teammates did a great job finding me tonight. I just let the game come to me”
Gordon had an acrobatic dunk against Frank Kaminsky, where Aaron was fed the ball by Wes Iwundu that threaded the needle off of a bounce. “I was going to to a reverse dunk, but I saw the defense coming and twisted and dunked it in”
The Magic have been doing well in the past week without their lone 2018 season all-star Nikola Vucevic, who is nursing a sprained ankle. Magic head coach Steve Clifford talks about how much Vucevic means to the Magic on the floor.
“He makes us more diverse.” Said Clifford, “When he’s not there, we lose so many aspects of our offense.””The difference was that we’re shooting the ball better. Our defensive rebounding isn’t close when he’s not out there. He’s a very good organizer, and we protect eh rim better when he’s in there.”
Frank Kaminsky took advantage of the Magic getting in late from their Tuesday night gave against Washington. Kaminsky scored 21 points against the Magic in the first half.
“He took advantage of our getting in at 2am this morning”, Said Clifford “Our defense against him in for beginning of the game was non-existent. We stopped making so many mistakes on him in the second half.”
Kaminsky was held to 2 points in the second half.
Evan Fournier was a solid shooter for Orlando in the game, scoring 21 points for the Magic and coming in with solid shots to keep the Magic lead in the second half.
The magic were up by as much as 25 in the game, but Clifford noted that the teams good shooting rhythm was to the key to them winning.
“There were some things we didn’t do well, but for the second game of a back to back we had good energy, and you just can’t play a better game than Aaron Gordon did tonight.”
“Our one on one defense was bad tonight” Sad Clifford “Look at Evan’s numbers and AG tonight, as well as Mo shooting 5 or 5 last night. We’ve been shooting the game well.”
“Our number one weakness this year has been our 3 point shooting.But guys get in rhythm and they go in, and that’s been the difference.”
“We’ve had to kind of reinvent ourselves, find different looks and we’re doing a really, really good job of moving the ball,’’ said guard Evan Fournier, who followed up games of 32 and 31 points with 21 points, four assists and three 3-pointers on Wednesday. “We just have a really good rhythm right now.’’
Center Khem Birch has been a solid player in Vucevic’s absence. Though he doesn’t have Nikola’s scoring skill, Them doe provide plenty of help on the defensive end. His 9 rebounds as well as his 7 points all help to get the Magic to the win.
The Magic head out on the road to face the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and the Milwaukee Bucks in Milwaukee on Monday before heading home to face LeBron James and the Lakers at Amway Center on Wednesday December 11th.
