(ORLANDO, Fl) – Its’ another dark day in Orlando. The Orlando Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-94, but lost point guard Markelle Fultz for the season with a torn left ACL.
In the 4:25 minute mark of the First quarter, Fultz was driving through the lane against the Cav’s, but screamed and crumpled to the floor without being touched. As Fultz rocked back and forth in pain, clutching his left knee, it was evident it was a serious injury.
Fultz needed assistance to leave the court and return to the locker room. The Magic announce shortly after the game ended that an MRI confirmed Fultz had torn his ACL in his left knee:
Fultz was working towards asserting himself as a leader on the floor, increasing his leadership, aggressiveness, and shooting. He was making an impressions so far in this early season, even scoring a career high 26 points against his hometown Washington Wizards. In seven games of action this season, Fultz has averaged 14.3 points and 6.1 assists per game.
The loss of Fultz is devastating for Orlando, who is dealing with major injuries to Forward Jonathan Isaac (knee) and AL Fariq Aminu (knee), as well as injuries to Evan Fournier (back), James Ennis (hamstring), Michael Carter-Williams (foot), Chuma Okeke (Knee) among others.
As far as the game is concerned, the Magic pulled out a victory over the Cavaliers, with Terrance Ross scoring 20 points from the bench, Dwayne Bacon dropping 19 points, and Nikola Vucevic scoring 26 points.
The Cavaliers were lead in scoring by Colin Sextong, naturally, with 21 points, followed by Andre Drummond who scored 19 points and had 15 rebounds.
The Magic could only produce 15 points in the first quarter, but managed to dig back in to outscore Cleveland 36-22 in the second.
The Magic now head out of town for a two-game road trip facing the Houston Rockets on Friday, followed by the Indiana pacers on Wednesday night.
More to come
