Yikes. That was a tough one to watch from start to finish. If you think about it Orlando is kind of like the Oklahoma City Thunder of the Eastern Conference as they’ve both got young and upcoming rosters. With that loss, the Raptors now fall to a 0-2 record in the new In-Season tournament.
The first quarter was pretty wild for Toronto. They only had four players score for them (Gary Trent Jr, Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam and Dennis Schroder.) Out of Toronto’s 23 points, 15 of them came from Yak and Skills in this one as the Raptors lost the quarter 30-23. Jalen Suggs led the quarter with 8 points for the Magic and was a factor all night long. Some might say the Raptors passing on him a few drafts ago for Scottie Barnes may have been extra motivation for Suggs tonight.
The second quarter was off to a brutal start as the Magic started to pull away. But Scottie Barnes and O.G. Anunoby did everything in their power in this quarter as they combined for 21 points. They managed to bring the Raptors back at the end of the half and keep the game close. This quarter was all Cole Anthony for Orlando as he played the full 12 minutes, and put up 8 points to go with it. Toronto lost the quarter 37-33 heading into the half.
The second half didn’t get much better for the Raptors. It was yet another quarter with just four Raptors who scored (Dennis Schroder, Scottie Barnes, Pascal Siakam and Precious Achiuwa.) Dennis Schroder did everything he could to try and bring this game back for Toronto but the defence was not good tonight. Paolo Banchero had a good quarter as he finished with 10 points in the third to give the Magic yet another win in the quarter 33-26.
You know the white flag is being waved when the starters only play five minutes in the fourth quarter and the rest of the time it’s just bench players. That’s what happened with the Raptors. There were some positives in this quarter, but Orlando was also running their bench unit and it was in garbage time so it doesn’t hold much weight. Toronto tried so hard and got so far and still lost the quarter 26-25 to give the clean sweep to Orlando tonight for all four quarters.
A brutal showing from Toronto all around but the defence was lacking tonight. Orlando shot 50 percent from the field, 39 percent from beyond the arc and outscored Toronto by 32 in the paint. Raptors honestly shot the ball well as they were 51 percent from the field, and 50 percent beyond the arc but another problem was the 23 turnovers that led to 31 Magic points. The bench also gave no pop tonight. Toronto gets back at it tonight as they’re in Indiana for another regular season showdown.
