2023-2024 Regular Season Game 21: Orlando Magic (14-6) at Cleveland Cavaliers (11-9) - 7pm

[Rainwater]

Games like these make me thank god everyday that the magic drafted Paolo over Jabari lol

[eyriq]

The information from this game that should soften our forecast isn't that we lost but that JI was held out and Suggs got injured.

But honestly I'm not overly worried as I think Paolo and Franz are good enough to go .500 while the rest of the starters heal up.

Really hope Mosley [guess what I'm going to say here]

[tooler]

This season can turn into a nightmare quickly if Suggs is out for extended time. Oh well.

[JF5]

This season can turn into a nightmare quickly if Suggs is out for extended time. Oh well.

I don't think so... if we're able to get Fultz and Carter back within the next few weeks. Then we'll most likely have the same looking squad we had that remained around 500. Last year.

But that's a big if...

[pepe1991]

There was never single second of this game where i thought we could actually win.
From being down to 23 after 18 min of basketball to late -8 with ball in our hands.

When you shoot 2-23 for 3 in modern basketball, it's simply near impossible to win a game.


our whole identity is transition and defense, in games where majority of your best defenders ( Isaac, Suggs, Wendell ) are out it's hard to maintain good defense with bunch of average to below average individual defenders, especially against team with 2 allstar guards who are potent.

Game against Pistons and how we approach it will be telling. Pistons suck, but still it took Grizzlies 49 points from Bane to kill them off and they were hanging in there for 3 quaters.

[KillMonger]

game was lost in the first quarter because we once again let someone go off on us.....why don't we ever try to trap said star player and let someone else beat us? i don't think we've ever tried it

[DiplomaticMagic]

If Suggs is out for an extended period of time, goodbye playoff hopes. And hope to get lucky with play-in.

[Bensational]

Cole isn’t impactful enough to justify his USG.

At times. Mosley has to figure out players like him like Jamal Crawford you have to play them by feel.. if he's hot play him more if he's not or he's struggling defensively play him less.

Cole is a tricky one. He’ll generally score at a reasonable clip, and that blinds people to the damage he does. If you look at the advanced 2-man lineup data Cole has pretty terrible net ratings with the starters (positive with Franz and Goga though). Literally, the moment he steps on the court in the 3rd Q with Paolo our points stop and opponent points start running up.

He’s just too much of a defensive liability that unless Ingles, Moe and Isaac are out there doing everything else to cover for him he’s likely going to cost us a lead.

I’m not writing him off but his role needs to be reduced severely - with a sliding scale to let him run wild when he’s really got it going on.

[SOUL]

Cole isn’t impactful enough to justify his USG.

At times. Mosley has to figure out players like him like Jamal Crawford you have to play them by feel.. if he's hot play him more if he's not or he's struggling defensively play him less.

Cole is a tricky one. He’ll generally score at a reasonable clip, and that blinds people to the damage he does. If you look at the advanced 2-man lineup data Cole has pretty terrible net ratings with the starters (positive with Franz and Goga though). Literally, the moment he steps on the court in the 3rd Q with Paolo our points stop and opponent points start running up.

He’s just too much of a defensive liability that unless Ingles, Moe and Isaac are out there doing everything else to cover for him he’s likely going to cost us a lead.

I’m not writing him off but his role needs to be reduced severely - with a sliding scale to let him run wild when he’s really got it going on.

Lol...Moe and Ingles are also defensive liabilities, let's be real man. The team is pretty bad when Suggs and Isaac aren't out there being the engine for all of that.

I also don't ascribe to this "keep playing Black, Goga, Jett tons of minutes and we'll win" stuff because two are rookies and don't impact the game that much and the third is a 3rd stringer playing above his means.

Harris has been **** shooting the past 6 games, Ingles has games where he just goes 0-1 or 0-2 but passes well so he is affecting the offense at least in other ways, but our bench I think is really driven by the game to game play of Isaac, Cole and Moe.

Like it or not, we do need Cole's points. If we can get most of them within the flow of the offense then nobody has an issue.. the issue is our starters are going down 20 points in the first quarter lately and the bench is tasked with bringing back the lead instead of playing with one.

[Tarheel]

Very winnable game, had we shot even average from 3 we'd have been there or thereabouts when it mattered. As Pepe said, you shoot 2-23 from 3 and you'll lose 99% of the time.

Hope Suggs' injury isn't too bad, he's been having a really good season so far.

[richi_v25]

There was never single second of this game where i thought we could actually win.
From being down to 23 after 18 min of basketball to late -8 with ball in our hands.

When you shoot 2-23 for 3 in modern basketball, it's simply near impossible to win a game.


our whole identity is transition and defense, in games where majority of your best defenders ( Isaac, Suggs, Wendell ) are out it's hard to maintain good defense with bunch of average to below average individual defenders, especially against team with 2 allstar guards who are potent.

Game against Pistons and how we approach it will be telling. Pistons suck, but still it took Grizzlies 49 points from Bane to kill them off and they were hanging in there for 3 quaters.

Me either, I'm catching a cold/flu and was hoping the game would cheer me up but i ended up taking Nyquil at the 3rd bc i didn't see how we could win with one 3pt to their 17. I made the right call bc that would have been a waste of a good hour of sleep. Nice to see Paolo got 42 too bad the rest of the team laid low.

[Skybox]

Tyus Jones and Kispert for Fultz and Jett?

Isn’t Jett already (possibly) a shooter like Kispert, who lacks the mobility to defend guards (like Kispert)?

IF that’s why Jett’s in the G league, it wasn’t a good pick…his physical limitations are clearly visible…I assumed the FO knew something I didn’t see in Jett, but he looks like a plodder to me and maybe not able to play at 2-so I wanted Hawkins or Cason…hope I’m wrong.

I like Tyus for Fultz and a sweetener. I like Kispert too…but I don’t know if he’s much different from Houstan or Jett. Simons.

[Skybox]

Didn’t see the game…Paolo’s point total was shocking, his assist total concerning, team 3’s always a concern.

I’m such a fan of Isaac (on-court)…I hope this isn’t the end for him, but it’s hard to go forward with such uncertainty.

Anyone not jazzed about the win streak is missing out. Anyone thinking this team is complete, as is, is delusional.

[3ddman23]

In supremely worried about this team currently. Injuries piling up and entering our toughest part of the schedule, while our defense has slipped quite a bit. It's a recipe for disaster. Idk how this is gonna go but I don't feel good.

You didn't feel good when we were in our 9 game winning streak though so

But yeah, injuries are hard to battle against. We're deep but we're getting tested here

Nah I didn't feel very good towards the end of the of the 9 game win streak primary starting with the Charlotte game and these last two Ls real show why I wasn't feeling so good about it. You combine all the variable and this can get real tricky really fast.

[magik9113]

I definitely do feel like this month will be a roller coaster.

However, our 21 year old rookie just dropped a career high! and most nights we will make more than 2 out of 23 threes.

[RichCollab]

Paolo is so well grounded while at the same time shooting for the stars.

Coach Mos has such a special connection with the players.

We are going to be alright. We need to weed out some of our injury prone players of the next couple of seasons. I’m hopeful Suggs overall we stay on the floor.

I keep JI if he accepts a reasonable pay cut do to his health. We don’t need him to be a starter and any time he is on the floor he is a game changer. I’m hoping he get to 50 games a year. I’m willing to bet on JI still. Again, as long as we don’t tie up to much salary.

[eyriq]

Black with 15 mins while playing the best game of his early career is so odd.

[The-Stallion70]

Paolo is so well grounded while at the same time shooting for the stars.

Coach Mos has such a special connection with the players.

We are going to be alright. We need to weed out some of our injury prone players of the next couple of seasons. I’m hopeful Suggs overall we stay on the floor.

I keep JI if he accepts a reasonable pay cut do to his health. We don’t need him to be a starter and any time he is on the floor he is a game changer. I’m hoping he get to 50 games a year. I’m willing to bet on JI still. Again, as long as we don’t tie up to much salary.

Agreed, our team is not the same without our two best defenders, Suggs and Isaac. We need them both out there for our team to be at its best.

[Bergmaniac]

It's pretty remarkable we even made it close after shooting 2/23 from 3. Even against a very good defensive team with two really good rim protectors we were able to get to the line and to score in the paint at an excellent rate and this kept us in the game. Paolo was fantastic offensively. But still, it was predictably not enough. But I am not too worried, we aren't a good 3 point shooting team, but nights like this one won't happen more than once or twice per season.

Defensively though we are slipping lately significantly. Part of this is Isaac's absence, but the minutes without him on the court were also better before the last 5 games. Some of this was inevitable, the way we were hustling on D early on is not really sustainable throughout the regular season, but it also seems that the opposing teams have been taking us more seriously lately and have made a better effort at attacking the weaker points of our defensive schemes and personnel.

I didn't like how little we used Ingles as a ballhandler in this one, too much Cole/Franz ISOs when he was on the court. Paolo was cooking so I understand why he was getting ISOs a lot, but Cole and Franz weren't and we could have used more of Ingles's ability to create in the Pick and roll.

Cole is playing too much lately, especially in the fourth quarter. He is often good, but having him play the whole last 17-18 minutes of games is far from ideal. Black was really good in the 6 minutes he played in the third quarter and that was our best stretch of the whole game so it was baffling to me why he never came back and Cole played the whole 4th quarter instead. We could have used more Goga in the 4th too.

I hope Suggs's ankle is not seriously injured, we badly need him for the December run of tough games.

[UCFJayBird]

Black with 15 mins while playing the best game of his early career is so odd.

His minutes just don't make sense to me. He starts but then gets second string minutes. I understand not normal starter minutes, but he should be getting 22-24 mpg.

This game was basically decided by three point shooting. Can't win many games shooting so poorly when the other team shoots it so well (even though they came back down to earth, which let us back into the game for a time). The chance was there down 8. if we hit that three pointer it gets really interesting. Also I felt like a lot of guys are forcing stuff at times. There was one play last night that stuck out big, in the 4th, Cole forces a 1 on 4 fast break, lol. He drives into the paint with 4 defenders and tries to draw a foul and forces up a shot instead of pulling it back out and setting up a play. I can't recall but I think Cavs immediately came the other way and hit a 3 and the game lost momentum instantly. Franz does this a bit as well, gets into the paint, forces up an awkward shot hoping for a bail out call. he's got a get a little better at picking those moments.

On the whole though, the melt down on twitter and facebook is always amusing as fans lose their minds. 9 straight and then 2 straight losses and it's "Oh no! We suck again!".