STAT OF THE NIGHT
Over the past three games, Orlando’s youthful second unit had played exceptionally well to spark strong finishes. In that time, the reserves had outscored foes bench players 122-60 and 86-56 in fourth quarters.
Try as they might, the Magic’s second unit just didn’t have the same crispness and pop on Wednesday night. The grouping of Victor Oladipo, Kyle O’Quinn, Maurice Harkless, E’Twaun Moore and starter Tobias Harris scored the first five points of the final period to put Orlando into a 65-64 lead, but they soon missed their next five shots.
For the game, Orlando got just 25 points off the bench and the Magic were outscored 22-20 in the fourth quarter. Oladipo was bothered by Memphis’ handling of pick-and-roll plays and he had to settle for far too many jump shots on a two-of-11 shooting night. He scored just seven points – 16 fewer than he had in the defeat of Indiana.
``Like when we won the past two games, we have to have the same approach. We might not always have the same result, and tonight we didn’t have the result that we wanted, but we’ve got to have the same approach,’’ said Oladipo, who missed all six of his second-half shots and went scoreless after intermission. ``We have to keep grinding and playing hard. We missed shots that we normally make. It’s a long season and we need to keep going.’’