During Sunday Night game at the Amway Center the Orlando Magic beat the Brooklyn Nets by 21 points.
Early in the fourth quarter, Orlando Magic Victor Oladipo tapped the ball away from Brooklyn Nets star Deron Williams and scooped the ball off the floor. Oladipo began to dribble the ball down the court and did a jump spin 360 degrees dunk.
For the Magic coaches and executives, other images throughout the game indicated a new and improved confidence from the team. Throughout the game Magic players ignored earful trash talking from Kevin Garnet and played as a team. Maurice Harkless played his heart out against the Brooklyn Nets bench and made a pair of three pointers. Andrew Nicholson fighting through a box-out from Nets center Brook Lopez and grabbing rebounds. This season the Magic did not allow the Nets to intimidate them at all.
Last season, the Nets controlled the tempo of the court and the Magic lost all four matchups against Nets by 19.8 points. The Orlando Magic learned from their past mistakes from last year matchup with the Nets and was ready to play their hearts out.
Orlando Magic player Vucevic said “That was last year and we don’t really want to think about what happened last year.”
Vucevic had 19 points, 12 rebounds and did not make it easy for Brook Lopez to get easy looks.
The victory from the Orlando Magic flawed the regular season coaching debut of Jason Kidd who missed the first two games because he was on suspension for his drunken drive over the summer.
Will the Orlando Magic continue to play this aggressive against other NBA teams? Only time will tell.