The Magic Runs Out for Orlando: Story of the Series

The Orlando Magic have been eliminated from the 2024 NBA playoffs in a seven game series by the Cleveland Cavaliers

Humzah Shaikh
The Press Box
6 min readMay 17, 2024

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Image Credit: Mickey Ardell

There are times when you have everything to lose, and there are times when you gain nothing in defeat. The Orlando Magic this year fell into the latter category. From being a team that has been forgettable for as long as I have been watching basketball, to come into this year’s playoffs as a top seed, I have nothing but applause for Orlando. Which is why this series was one I dreaded watching. I didn’t want either team to lose, yet one would have to. On one hand you have the Orlando Magic playing their first year of relevant basketball in a long time, full of young talent and led by Paolo Banchero who has flown under the radar as of late but is really starting to blossom as a player. On the other hand you had the Cleveland Cavaliers, led by the electrifying Donovan Mitchell. Earlier this year rumours regarding Mitchell’s future with the team circulated. Now whether these rumours were true or not, one thing was certain: Mitchell wants to win. And if Cleveland got bounced out in the first round, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume ‘Spida’ was going to stay in ‘The Land’ for much longer.

Game 1 was one of utter domination. There is no other way to put it. At no point did Orlando take the lead or even tie the game. Despite coughing up more turnovers, Cleveland would impose their will on Orlando for 48 minutes straight, the result never being in doubt. Despite solid performances from the Magic’s roster, Cleveland looked a level above their opponent in terms of talent, and with playoff experience everything seemed to be in their favour.

Game 2 would be another blowout win for the Cavaliers, who beat the Magic by 10. It’s one thing to dominate for most of a game. It’s another to have your opponent beat from the opening tip two times in a row. At no point in this game did Orlando ever lead the game. They would tie it, but that was as far as they would get. Going down 2–0 in such demoralizing fashion, I felt that this series would be a short one. Perhaps Orlando could win a game in my head. But I didn’t think they’d be able to make this a compelling series. They would get eliminated in a gentleman’s sweep, but next year would be an exciting one.

But Orlando wasn’t keen on getting a ‘participation’ win.

At home, the Magic would beat the Cavaliers twice in a pair of statement games that sent a very clear message to both their opponents and spectators. ‘We ain’t going anywhere.’ Some may argue this was down to Donovan Mitchell having two cold games, but that is inaccurate. Sure, Mitchell wasn’t his usual self in these games, but a large part of that was Orlando’s defensive pressure. That coupled with the consistency of Orlando’s star players would tie up the series at two a piece going back to Cleveland, with the series now being anyone’s game. In battles like this, analysts often say that whichever team can steal a game on the road is likely to win.

And in game 5 it looked like Orlando was going to take the lead in a game that went down to the wire. Behind another 39 performance from Paolo Banchero, and a game where the Magic made more of their shots than Cleveland made of theirs, the story of this game would be Evan Mobley who would come up with a clutch block, as well as a go-ahead dunk with the assist from Max Strus. While Donovan Mitchell would ice the game with free throws, this was the type of game that exemplified the importance of team basketball. No matter how star-dominated the league is, no one man can win alone. Jordan didn’t win without Pippen and Rodman. LeBron didn’t win without stars like Wade and Irving and Bosh. And in a game that could have easily went in Orlando’s favour, the ‘Spida’ would find a helping hand that would give Cleveland a 3–2 lead in the series.

If I told you that in game 6, Mitchell would score 50 points and made nearly 66 percent of his shots, on top of good games from Darius Garland and Max Strus, who would you think won this game? What if I also told you that Cleveland made close to half of their shots while Orlando made less than 40 percent of theirs? Would you assume this game was the end of the series?

If you answered yes, let this be a lesson: numbers may not lie, but they can certainly be misleading.

Because in a must-win game for Orlando, the Magic would have a late game run that gave them a 103–96 win. Like Cleveland had shown in the fifth game, one stellar performance is not usually enough to win a team game. Sure, Mitchell had a fantastic performance. But Orlando had the better all around game, with multiple players scoring above 20 in addition to a gritty performance on defense. Which would take us to a seventh and final game. With the home team being undefeated in this series up to this point, the odds seemed to be in Cleveland’s favour. But as Orlando had repeatedly proven in this series, they were no pushover. If Cleveland wanted to win, they’d have to earn it the hard way. As I eagerly waited for game 7, I knew one thing.

I was going to be heartbroken for one of these teams by the time the dust settled.

In game 7, the game would be back and forth for the first four minutes. Orlando would then take a three point lead courtesy of Paolo Banchero. From that moment on, Orlando would step on the gas, pounding Cleveland relentlessly from all over the floor. Fast forward to the second quarter with about four minutes left, and the Cavaliers were down a whooping 18 points which would be cut down to 10 by the end of the half. Still, this game looked like it was Orlando’s to win. But Cleveland was not content to go quietly. Despite being down for nearly three quarters of the game, the Cavs would go on a run that would level the playing field with three minutes left in the third. This felt neatly poetic. In a series that had come down to the final game, the deciding game would come down to the final stretch. And in the final stretch, the Cavaliers would pull ahead and keep the lead all the way to the final buzzer. Ultimately the clock would strike midnight for Orlando, and the magic would run out. When the dust settled, it would be Cleveland that moved on to the second round.

This series was a mirror match, where whatever one side did the other would do as well. The first two games would be won by Cleveland in a pair of blowouts, only for the next two to be blowouts in Orlando’s favour. Back and forth the series would go, every game being won by the home team. Stars would shine on both side, co-stars and team players would rise to the occasion on both sides. Ultimately Orlando would be eliminated but they should take pride in this season, and I look forward to covering them in the future.

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Humzah Shaikh
The Press Box

Professional Unpaid Writer. Specializes in storytelling. Loves basketball, humour, writing advice and original stories. 1 time top NBA writer