There was a great deal of disappointment stemming from the Magic (10-29) on Thursday after they fell 128-125 to the Bulls in just the fourth triple-overtime game in the 25-year history of the franchise. The crushing defeat extended the Magic’s losing skid to nine games, the longest of the season.
But the hurt feelings were stemmed by the incredible promise displayed on Wednesday night by Oladipo, Orlando’s prized pick from last June’s NBA Draft. He mostly scored at will, hitting 15 of 24 shots while spending nearly as much time at the rim as Chicago’s trio of big men.
When the Bulls put Kirk Hinrich or D.J. Augustin on Oladipo, he used his strength and size to simply shoot over them. And when Chicago assigned bigger defensive ace Jimmy Butler to him, Oladipo would blow past the defense for dazzling layups over the shot-blockers.
``People are going to give me a lot of different looks,’’ Oladipo said of the many defenses that teams have used against him this season. ``Against Dallas (on Monday), they just came and fully trapped me. (On Wednesday), they put a bigger guy on me and who knows what they are going to do next? They’ll probably put an even bigger guy on me. Whatever guy it is, I’m just trying to learn to score on whatever kind of defense. That’s a process and being consistent with it takes time.’’
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