Clearly fatigued from playing for a second night in a row and without their leading scorer, the Orlando Magic fell off the pace in the fourth quarter and couldn’t withstand a hail of 3-pointers as Brooklyn rolled to a 97-77 victory at the Barclays Center.
For the Magic (14-30), it was their sixth consecutive loss. It is the 17th defeat in the past 19 games – many of them coming in nail-biting fashion like Friday’s 97-95 loss to Toronto and Sunday’s 104-102 loss at the hands of the Detroit Pistons. In those games, Toronto won on a buzzer-beating shot, while the Pistons held on to win when Orlando missed four shots in the final five seconds of the game.
Clearly frustrated by all of the losing, Magic co-captain Glen ``Big Baby’’ Davis said after the game that the team might have to take drastic measures to get back to the winning ways of early in the season. Davis said that Monday’s third-quarter run was encouraging, but the Magic need more efforts like that start-to-finish if they are going to win.
``If you want something to change you’ve got to make a change,’’ said Davis, who had 15 points and five rebounds. ``We can’t wish and pray that a team won’t make shots; we have to make them miss shots. We can’t worry and pray that the ball will go in; we have to put the ball in the hole. It starts with the leaders. I hold myself really high with what I can do and right now I’m just not doing it. I just have to keep working to get back to that Glen Davis who can really affect the game in a lot of ways.’’
This one seemed to be shaping up as another close game, especially after the Magic kept clawing defensively in the third quarter and got within seven points of the lead, but Brooklyn (27-18) pulled away late. The Nets, who won all four meetings this season against the Magic, hit 13 3-pointers, six of which came in the fourth quarter. Former Magic guard Keith Bogans hit three 3-pointers in the final period to put away the Magic.
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