ORLANDO - While the Orlando Magic have consistently been one of the NBA’s best defensive teams this season, the Osceola Magic have steadily been one of the G League’s best offensive teams.
They now hope that offensive firepower will carry over to the playoffs, which starts this week. Following a bye, the Magic will host the winner of the first-round matchup between the Capital City Go-Go and Long Island Nets in the quarterfinals on Friday, April 5 at 7 p.m. at the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee (Click here for tickets). If Osceola wins that contest, it will also host the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday at 7 p.m.
“It’s a huge honor for us,” Osceola first-year head coach Dylan Murphy said. “We are really excited about it. The crowds have been growing throughout this season. We think it’s going to give us a huge boost.”
Finishing the regular season 22-12, best in the East, Osceola averaged a league-best 120.1 points per game and shot a league-high 49.4 percent from the field. Mac McClung, the NBA’s reigning back-to-back All-Star Weekend slam dunk champion, led the G League in scoring with 25.7 points per contest on 50.9 percent field goal shooting.
Back in February, at around the halfway point of the regular season, McClung felt like his team was in excellent shape going forward. The continuity within the group, just as we’ve seen in Orlando with the parent club, was precisely what he envisioned it would be when they first arrived for training camp in the fall.
“I think we have a great team,” he had said. “We have a ton of talent. We are working all together. We don’t want anything less than a championship. That’s all of our goals, and I think we have a good chance at it.”
From that point, the G League Magic won 11 of their next 13 games, including on March 21 when they set a new franchise record by scoring 168 points against the Birmingham Squadron.
Back in early December, during the showcase portion of the schedule, Osceola buried a franchise-record 25 3-pointers in a victory over the Oklahoma City Blue. Two-way contract player Trevelin Queen, who a couple months later was named the G League Up Next Game MVP, knocked down six triples in that contest.
A big piece as well for Osceola has been NBA rookie Jett Howard, the 11th overall pick by the Magic in the 2023 draft. In 35 games – showcase and regular season combined – the 6-foot-8 swingman averaged 18.8 points and shot just a shade under 38 percent from 3-point range.
“Jett is super skilled offensively, and that’s been the case throughout the season,” Murphy said. “I don’t think anyone had any questions about his ability to shoot the ball, make plays and (his) willingness to share it. His growth on the defensive end has been really, really impressive, especially because it’s not easy to be the 11th pick in the draft and then spend most of your season in the G League. He’s embraced it. He’s embraced the grind of professional basketball. He sees the long-term vision and he continues to kind of keep his eyes down the road for what this is going to do for him.”
While most of his rookie campaign has been spent in the G League, Howard has appeared in 14 games with Orlando, although each of those times he’s stepped on the court it’s been in a blowout in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
Orlando head coach Jamahl Mosley is extremely proud of what Osceola has accomplished so far in its first season in its new home.
“Dylan has done a fantastic job; that group has done a great job of helping those guys grow, get better, work together,” he said. “The ups and downs of a season, he’s navigated that well. I think those guys are really pumped up about where they are right now.”
Two of Osceola’s players this season were signed by NBA teams mid-season. Point guard Brandon Williams, who appeared in 14 games for Osceola, signed a two-way deal with the Dallas Mavericks in late December, while forward D.J. Wilson, who played in 33 games for Osceola, signed a 10-day contract with the Philadelphia 76ers in late March.
The Magic’s G League squad is back in the postseason for the first since 2021, when it won the championship in the Disney bubble. This is the fourth trip to the playoffs for them overall since inaugurating in Florida in the 2017-18 season (there were no G League playoffs in 2020 because of the pandemic).
They played in Lakeland from 2017 to 2023 before relocating to Osceola Heritage Park prior to the start of this season.
The G League is the NBA’s official developmental league, preparing players, coaches, officials, trainers and front office staff for careers in the NBA, while acting as the league’s research and developmental laboratory. The G League featured 31 teams this season – 29 with one-to-one affiliations with NBA franchises. Next season, all 30 NBA teams will have a direct affiliation to a G League team.