Suffering a five-game skid after their road trip losing, the Magic were hoping a homecoming might allow them to fish a win from the New Orleans Pelicans. While the Magic were missing franchise forward Paolo Banchero (who is out for at least another month) and starting center Wendell Carter Jr., the Pelicans were without their star big man Zion Williamson as multiple additional key contributors including forward Herbert Jones, guard Trey Murphy III, guard Jordan Hawkins, guard Dejounte Murray, and guard CJ McCollum.

The Magic took advantage of the roster deficiency and flew out to a 37-23 1st quarter advantage with forwards Franz Wagner and rookie Tristan Da Silva combining for 24 points. However, New Orleans hit a 2nd quarter 15-1 run on the back of guard Brandon Boston who got hot. This reduced Orlando’s upperhand  57-47 halftime lead.

Boston would finish with 26 points with a solid contribution from Jose Alvarado pouring in 21.

Wagner’s 27 points along with 17 points from Mo Wagner off the bench was yet another instance of the brothers carrying the torch for the Magic in Paolo’s absence. However, it was guard Anthony Black off the bench who made a second-half surge as well as center Goga Bitadze’s presence in the paint that helped put the game away. Both players recorded 11 points while Bitadze led the team with nine of the squad’s 44 rebounds — 13 more than New Orleans.

While the Magic only sank eight of their 32 three-point attempts, it was their 74 points in the paint and forcing them to miss 52 of their 84 shots for a 38% field goal percentage that kept the Pelicans at bay.

“It was great for our guys to find a rhythm defensively — to know exactly what we wanted to do and how we wanted to play and hang our hats on that end of the floor,” said Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley.  Mosley also expressed relief in returning to the home court. After facing the road trip, it gave the team time in practice to regroup and recalibrate their approach on how to attack their opponents.

Orlando has four more games in this current home stand starting with the Washington Wizards on Sunday. It features a pair of Emirates Cup games against the Charlotte Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers with their third contest of the year against the Indiana Pacers mixed in. Then on November 18th, the Magic head to Phoenix for a three-game trip out west.