I gotta go with Suggs on this one. His big shooting night was a difference maker. He had some real momentum turning moments too with defense and shooting. Suggs and Franz started the offense off and kept it afloat all game.
Franz for the cummerbund for getting the offense going and keeping it going down the stretch.
Fultz for the mittens. His work off the bench has been leading small runs to take leads. It’s not as impactful as Paolo, but he deserves a nod.
Felt like the biggest plays of the night was Paolo's pull up 3 and Wendells block on Mitchell leading to Paolos and 1.
Voted Paolo.
Gotta say Ive been a critic of Wendell and he doesnt have great numbers but hes been great this series. Need him to bring the physicality on Sunday. He can body Mobley.
This really could go to any of the core three. They were all great on both of sides of the court. I want to give the vest to Suggs for knocking down 6 threes. That's more than the rest of the team combined.
Going with F-Wagner for the vest for his 1st half dominance. Suggs for the cummerbund given that without his threeball, the Magic get drubbed Banchero for mittens then ????? Just shows how great the top-3 were!
Lollipops for Carter, Anthony, and Fultz. All three STEPPED UP when it mattered. Isaac can have one also, given his defense and 9 rebounds. His last offensive rebound iced-the game, in particular.
I recorded the game on my box so I can make my dad watch it. He was a huge Magic fan and after Shaq left he got mad and hasn't watched since, outside of the one Darrell Armstrong Heart and Hustle season. I told him Suggs is the Energizer Bunny reincarnated so he said he would give it a shot. Hell of a game for him to watch.
That Suggs play where he saved it twice and then drills the Curry Logo three I guess gets my vote.
Tough choice, but going with Suggs. He was fighting through screens, drawing offensive fouls. got into it with Niang, and also got the crowd into it at the end. His intensity is unmatched. Franz was solid throughout. Paolo was clutch down the end, but still had too many annoying turnovers.
Vest - Paolo Banchero The vest goes to Paolo for being an unstoppable force with 17 points in the 2nd half. This included clutch buckets left and right. We saw this clutch gene in the regular season's closest games. What's crazy is he already makes small improvements game over game while going for 20 or 30+.
Cummerbund - Franz Wagner An unbelievable 18 point performance in the 1st half alone. His defense was superb like it's been many times this year. There's a smoothness to his attack, and it would be no surprise at all if he's the one leading ORL with a 30+ point, Game 7 win.
Mittens - Jalen Suggs The shot was looking great tonight. And it's not a fluke, in my honest opinion. This is the real Suggs we will see more of this post-season and future seasons. Pair that with an unmatched energy by any other player on both teams, and there's a good argument for Suggs to take the Vest or Cummerbund too. I actually mentioned this like 2 months ago, but Jalen is surprisingly accurate and in the zone when launching quicker 3's off of flares or basically, running with speed into them. I'd say at least two his six 3's were directly like this. It's Ray Allen-esque. Another big difference tonight was he actually reigned it in a little better in the first half this time, he let Franz get his 18, he let Paolo go 3 AST:1 TO, and Jalen himself did the same 3 AST:1 TO. Shoutouts to Cole Anthony for getting Mittens consideration, and 'Kelle for a second straight great game in limited minutes.
Recap Thoughts -
Spoiler:
To the bitter end. That's how I described the Magic defense in one of the posts this week. I loved it. They are absolute fanatics to guard their guy with less help (to the bitter end) than other NBA teams would normally give. And it worked. CLE was a little shut off outside of Donovan and Garland. Donovan and Garland were visibly bothered and exhausted too, despite Donovan joining MJ in a couple Playoffs statistics.
I would repeat it with a twist though. Because we were leaking some defense away with possessions involving Wendell directly and indirectly, even though he did an admirable job and the boxscore +/- liked him. Well, it may be too creative and ignorant of player to player matchups, but basically I would try to have Wendell and Isaac shift assignments mid-possessions so that Isaac can return to some anchor defense with his insane length and instincts. Adjustments to adjustments to adjustments in this series has me kind of eyeing using Isaac better again, and doing this clever switching of Isaac next to any other Magic frontcourt players too. And because of Cole Anthony's hops, I would stick him on the likes of Struss, Niang, Morris instead of some possessions I saw on Garland.
Offensively, I liked this Cole over (injured) Gary as the final lineup. It makes the final lineup more threatening offensively than perhaps any other lineup. If he doesn't give up too much on defense, his hops are a serious tool on both sides of the court too. But Mosely is doing great this post-season and looks flexible to who was impacting the game for us. This time, Cole played the most minutes of anyone in the 4th quarter. But maybe next game JI gets hot and eats more 4th quarter minutes than he did this game.
Overall though, I don't have much to offer for notes on offense. My only real note is to not be tricked by the raw stats. The eyes say different and the closer to 23 years old than not Franz seems even more of a point forward the last couple games or so. While Paolo seems even more of a scoring machine and the clutchest player. This may be why CLE religiously doubled Franz in one of the games, to mess with his orchestration of the team offense. So my final shift is to nudge Franz into more quarterback touches and to nudge Paolo into more of his scoring mindset. Because, basically, since game 1 of the regular season, my motto hasn't changed. We don't use guards. We use two point forwards. We played our best games when they had to play as point guards and top scorers after an ORL guard brought it up the court. So let's play our two point forwards like 30+ PPG All Stars!
Man, looking at the numbers I really underestimated how much Paolo carried us in the 4th in scoring. Amending my vote above to give Paolo the Mittens instead of Fultz.
