ORLANDO - In their inaugural 2017-18 season, the Lakeland Magic reached the postseason. The very next year, they appeared in the Eastern Conference Finals. Now in 2021, after the G League was denied a playoffs in 2020 because of the pandemic, Lakeland has taken another major step forward by advancing to the championship game.
The No. 6 seed in this year’s G League playoffs, Lakeland eliminated the No. 3-seeded Erie BayHawks in the opening round on Monday behind record-setting 3-point shooting and then on Tuesday, led by their stifling second-half defense, they knocked out the No. 2-seeded Santa Cruz Warriors in the semifinals. In the finals, which tips off on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2, they will square off against the Delaware Blue Coats, who pulled off their own upset by ousting top-seeded Raptors 905 in their semifinal matchup.
“We have a great organization and it starts at the top with Alex Martins (Magic CEO), Jeff Weltman (President of Basketball Operations) and John Hammond (General Manager), along with Anthony Parker (Lakeland GM) and Tunji Adedipe (Lakeland Assistant GM),” Lakeland Head Coach Stan Heath said. “Those guys really buy in. Matt Lloyd (Magic Assistant GM) is a part of that too. Just kind of really buying into the importance of our team for the development of players and also building a culture (in which) Orlando Magic players can come here and they are going to be in a good environment. They are going to develop, they are going to learn how to play the right away. It’s been a great process.”
All of the 2021 G League games this year have been played at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports complex, where the NBA completed its 2019-20 season. From the onset of the season, which started in early February, to now one victory away from the title, Lakeland has been the G League’s best defensive team.
One of the keys in defeating the Warriors was making things difficult on Jeremy Lin, who chose to play in the G League this season with hopes of ultimately reclaiming a spot in the NBA. In the second half, after Heath made a defensive adjustment by putting Magic two-way contract player Karim Mane on Lin and 6-foot-7 forward Robert Franks on Axel Toupane, another former NBA player, the Magic restored its defensive identity.
Also key was the play of 26-year-old Tahjere McCall, who briefly played with the Brooklyn Nets during the 2018-19 season. He, like Mane, was a major factor in limiting Lin’s production after halftime.
“He’s amazing. His ability to put pressure and disrupt you so much out of your offense,” Heath said about the Philadelphia native, who in addition to playing stout defense scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the win over Santa Cruz. “I think for a stretch there when he was in, we had a two or four-point lead and it just kind of grew into a double-digit lead and a lot of that was the pressure on the ball and them (unable) to get into (their) offense.”
While Lakeland’s No. 1-ranked defense is the main reason they are still playing, their 3-point shooting lately has been off the charts. Against Erie in the first round, the Magic sank a G League playoff-record 23 3-pointers. Antonio Campbell, a 6-foot-9 forward who is in his second stint with Lakeland, drilled five of them, while 5-foot-11 guard Andrew Rowsey, signed by Lakeland late last season, hit four triples.
That sizzling beyond-the-arc shooting carried over to their semifinal win over Santa Cruz. Franks, who finished with a game-high 23 points, buried five of the Magic’s 17 treys.
“(We are) just finding our rhythm and then we are just clicking on offense. It really starts with our defense. But once we get to the offensive end, we are moving it, we are having fun and the ball is dropping,” said Franks, who was with the Orlando Magic during their training camp in December.
Advancing to the championship game without their leading scorer in the regular season is also noteworthy. Mamadi Diakite, Milwaukee’s two-way contract player, was recalled by the Bucks last week. In 12 games with Lakeland, the 6-foot-9, 228-pounder averaged 18.5 points, tied for 19th most in the league this season. The Bucks’ G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd, was one of the teams that opted not to travel to Disney.
Even when certain guys haven’t been available or when lineup modifications have been made, Lakeland has managed to stay sharp and make gradual progress because of the chemistry they’ve developed. Winning five of their last six regular season games and now their first two in the playoffs shows just how much improvement they’ve made in a relatively short period of time.
“The way this team started at the beginning of this bubble to where we are now is like night and day,” Heath said. “We defended I think from day one. Our offense was just kind of chugging along and now in the last four, five games we really picked things up. We lost a really good player in Mamadi Diakite, so the other guys instead of just kind of saying, hey we lost a great player, everybody stepped up and rallied. The beauty of our team and the strength of our team is really the ability through every game there’s a different guy that steps up. We don’t really necessarily have one or two guys. There’s different guys that step up.”
It’s been an extraordinary last few months for sports teams in the Tampa Bay region. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup, the Rays appeared in the World Series, the Bucs won the Super Bowl and now the Magic’s developmental team, which under normal conditions plays its home games about a half-hour drive away from Tampa at Lakeland’s RP Funding Center, is in the G League title game.