ORLANDO, Fla. — After Orlando Magic big man Jonathan Isaac forced Anthony Davis to miss a turnaround jumper early in the fourth quarter, Franz Wagner grabbed the defensive rebound and hustled up the floor. He dribbled up the middle of the court five times from inside the paint by Orlando’s bench to just outside the free-throw line on the opposite side of the court without any Lakers play stepping in front of him.
By the time Wagner approached Austin Reaves inside the paint in front of the Lakers’ bench, Wagner’s older brother, Moe, made his way from beside where Franz grabbed the rebound to just outside the paint in front of the Lakers’ bench, ready for his younger brother to throw him an alley-oop with nothing but space between him and the Magic’s basket.
Franz connected with Moe for the alley-oop, throwing down the dunk and forcing Lakers coach Darvin Ham to call a timeout with his team down by 25.
The play was a microcosm of the Lakers’ 120-101 road loss to the Magic Saturday at Amway Center.
The Lakers (3-3) were outhustled. And despite Ham saying pregame that the team’s transition defense and defensive rebounding needed to be areas of focus, they were simply outworked, taking a 51-40 drubbing on the boards while playing without five injured players.
“Their energy, their effort, they outworked us,” Ham said. “And because of that energy and effort, they saw the ball go in. They did a great job of just playing fast continuously, covering for one another defensively and just pounding us on the glass.
All of the areas of the game that are associated with making the “hustle plays” went in the Magic’s favor.
The Lakers allowed the Magic to grab 19 offensive rebounds, which Orlando turned into 36 second-chance points.
“That’s definitely been our trend – offensive rebounds and points off turnovers,” said Lakers star LeBron James, who finished with 24 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals. “We’ll do a good job of getting a stop and then an offensive rebound allows them to score.”
“It definitely helps when you have bigger bodies,” James said. “We have three of our bigger bodies out right now with injuries. … It would help, but that’s definitely one of the ways we have to look at to get better.”
The Magic turned 17 Laker turnovers into 22 points and led by 25 points late in the third quarter. Orlando (4-2) outscored the Lakers 15-5 in fast-break points and ensured the 50-50 balls consistently went in its favor.
“It’s a huge, huge step backwards for us,” Ham said, “in terms of our defensive rebounding.”
It didn’t help the Lakers that they struggled to defend without fouling early and that the extra scoring opportunities they gave the Magic helped Orlando find its rhythm from behind the arc.
“When you’re playing catch up, from an energy standpoint, you’re going to be behind the eight ball all night,” Ham said. “And those shots become bigger, more pressing. At the end of the day, you’ve got to come play with effort. Energy and effort. You can’t coach effort. You’ve got to have that. It’s got to be in your brain. Whatever is going on, when you get to the gym, you’ve got to be locked into the mission at hand. And we just didn’t have it [Saturday].”
Neither did their own shooting struggles (26.7% from 3-point range), preventing them from bringing their deficit to less than 12 in the second half. And by the time they started to reestablish a rhythm in the fourth as part of a comeback attempt, they were once again outworked.
With 4:04 remaining, Cole Anthony knocked down a 3-pointer after a Goga Bitadze offensive rebound, giving the Magic a 113-97 lead, with Ham calling a timeout and taking out his rotation players.
“We got to do a better job of that and get that under wraps,” James said. “It’s something we should challenge ourselves for, for sure.”
Davis led the Lakers with 28 points (10-of-15 shooting), 13 rebounds, seven blocked shots and three assists, but they were a minus-24 in his 32 minutes. It was the 12th regular-season game of Davis’ career with he had seven-plus blocks, last doing it against the Memphis Grizzlies on Feb. 21, 2020.
James was a plus-12 in 35 minutes in the blowout loss, with the Lakers struggling on both ends when he was on the bench.
Reaves seems to be coming out of his slump, finishing with 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 3 for 5 from 3-point range.
Franz Wagner had 26 points and five rebounds and Paolo Banchero had 25 points (9-of-15 shooting), 10 assists and seven rebounds in 34 minutes. Orlando’s reserves outscored their Laker counterparts 39-16.
The Lakers will remain in Florida, next playing the Miami Heat on Monday.
