Franz Wagner scored a season-high 37 points, and the Orlando Magic used a big fourth-quarter run to close out a 3-0 homestand with their 133-121 defeat of the New York Knicks on Saturday.
Orlando scored 13 unanswered in a span of less than two minutes in the final period, part of a larger 20-6 run that gave the Magic an 18-point lead.
Contributions from Anthony Black bookended the definitive stretch, as he hit a 3-pointer to ignite the 20-6 spell and assisted Tristan da Silva on a dunk. Black finished with 11 points and four assists off the bench, backing up the 90 combined points Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Desmond Bane delivered.
Suggs surpassed his previous season high of 23 points, which he scored in the Magic’s last outing Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers, finishing with 26 points Saturday.
Bane scored 27 points and accounted for three of Orlando’s 13 made 3-pointers on 33 attempts. Wendell Carter Jr., who scored 11 points, hit another two as part of a perfect 4-for-4 shooting performance.
Wagner set the pace from both beyond and inside the arc, knocking down 4-of-6 triples and going 9-of-13 on 2-point field-goal attempts.
Saturday marked Wagner’s first 30-plus-point game of the season, and he was one shy of matching his career high of 38. Wagner also doled out a team-high seven assists.
Jalen Brunson buoyed New York with 33 points and a game-high 11 assists.
Karl-Anthony Towns scored 18 of his 24 points in the second half, with much of his work coming at the foul line. Towns went 10-of-11 at the charity stripe to offset an otherwise difficult offensive game.
He shot just 6-of-14 from the floor and committed a team-high four of New York’s 17 turnovers. Orlando converted the takeaways into 18 points.
The Magic’s most significant advantage came in the interior, however, with a 64-46 advantage for points in the paint.
–Field Level Media
