ORLANDO, FL – The Orlando Magic beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 90 to 85 on career performance by Wendell Carter Jr.
Carter scored a career high 30 points on the night, carrying the Magic on his back, also adding 16 rebounds while OKC kept most of the Magic squad to single digit scoring. A key to the Magic’s problems was the 21 turnovers, leading to 23 OKC points for the night.
The Thunder were lead in scoring by Darius Bazley with 18 points for the game, with Ty Mann scoring 13 points.
This was a low scoring game between teams with two of the worst records in the NBA, Orlando with a 19-53 record, and OKC with a record of 20-51. This was evident with neither team shooting over 35% in field goal percentage.
After a slow start, the Magic managed to end the first quarter up 31-25, with Carter scoring 13 points.
“A lot of credit to my teammates.” said Carter “I just saw it as an opportunity to help my team out. That was my mindset coming out.”
Magic head coach Jamal Mosely has been impressed with his progress.
“His dominance, his ability to just understand his physical presence is, what his voice is and what it means to this team, that’s what impresses me with Wendell.” Mosely said.
OKC, playing without Sean Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey, were playing without some of their normal scorers, but managed to keep defensive pressure on Orlando, who really didn’t have a great shooting night, shooting 38% from the field and 22% from deep.
Only Carter, and Franz and Mo Wagner managed to score in double digits.
After OKC developed a second half lead, Orlando managed to battle back to close a five point gap to a 76-76 tie. Soon after Carter gave the Magic the lead with an emphatic dunk.
Towards the end of the game, bot teams traded foul shot, and the Magic managed to hold Oklahoma City to the 90-85 score for the win.
Carter’s 30 topi, 80% shooting night puts him in the company of historical Magic centers as he’s the third in franchise history to do it, joining Shaquille O’Neal and Dwight Howard.
Orlando comes bak to the court to face the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday March 22nd at Amway Center.
