Looking to end a three-game skid, the injury-ravaged Orlando Magic continue a seven-game homestand on Saturday when they host their in-state counterparts, the Miami Heat.
Miami, playing the second leg of a back-to-back set, comes into Orlando on a two-game losing streak after falling 104-97 to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday.
The Heat won a season-high four straight before losing 125-124 in overtime at Detroit on Monday, prior to the Friday setback.
The latest loss featured an additional blow for Miami. Jimmy Butler exited the Friday game after playing less than eight games, the result of a stomach illness. The Heat also lost Bam Adebayo for a spell in the second half when he required seven stitches to close a cut above his left eyebrow.
Adebayo returned, however, finishing with 17 points and 10 rebounds, the fifth double-double in his past six games.
“He’s tough. You have no doubt he was going to work his way back in there,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of Adebayo. “Bam allows you to do a lot of different things. He was still able to come back and get some key rebounds. That’s the kind of toughness he brings.”
Adebayo is averaging 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, and a key figure for a Miami defense that ranks sixth in the league in points allowed per game (109.5). Among the defenses yielding fewer points is Orlando, which is holding opponents to 103.6 points per game, second in the NBA.
Offense has been the problem for the Magic during the recent stretch.
Orlando opened its longest homestand of the season on Sunday with a 100-91 loss to the New York Knicks, that coming on the heels of a 114-109 defeat in NBA Cup play on Dec. 10 at Milwaukee. Both games, as well as a 105-99 setback against Oklahoma City on Thursday, were played without Franz Wagner, who puts up 24.4 points per game.
Wagner was on a run with three straight games scoring 30-plus points before sustaining a right oblique tear on Dec. 6. In the four games without him in the lineup, the Magic have averaged 103.5 points per contest.
The Magic also saw guard Jalen Suggs leave the Thursday game with a sprained ankle. He got hurt in the first half but came out to play four minutes in the second half before exiting for good.
“He’s a tough kid,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said, according to the Orlando Sentinel. “He wants to be out there, and that’s what you see in him. We said it before the game — his passion, his energy, his intensity to want to be on the floor with his guys.”
The Magic have also been without Paolo Banchero, who was averaging 29 points per game when he last played on Oct. 30. Banchero is progressing toward a return from his own oblique injury, Mosley told reporters on Thursday.
In the meantime, the Magic continue to look for offensive answers. Suggs, who scored 32 points against Milwaukee, managed just nine points in each of the past two games. He is listed as probable for Saturday.
Anthony Black came off the Orlando bench to score a season-high 23 points on Thursday, improving his season average to 8.7 points per game.
–Field Level Media
