Orlando begins easier stretch

The Orlando Magic played a brutal schedule from Nov. 11 through Monday.

They played nine of their 13 games on the road. The Magic also played some of the NBA’s best teams, including the Golden State Warriors twice, Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves; combined, their 11 different opponents had won 57.3 percent of their games through Wednesday.

The Magic struggled over that lethal stretch. They posted a 2-11 record. They also had the league’s 22nd-best offense and its second-worst defense as measured by points per possession.

But help is on the way, courtesy of an easier schedule.

On Wednesday night, the Magic hosted the Atlanta Hawks, the team with the NBA’s secondworst record.

The game opened a new — and critical — stretch of the Magic’s schedule.

The Magic will play 10 different opponents over their 13 games from Wednesday through Jan. 1, including the Hawks twice and the league’s worst team, the Chicago Bulls. Entering Wednesday, those 10 different teams had combined to win only 43.7 percent of their games.

Translation: The Magic must—absolutely — make up the ground they lost recently by piling up as many wins as possible against cellar-dwelling teams such as the Hawks and the Bulls and also beat teams that are missing key players due to injuries, including the Los Angeles Clippers.

Including Wednesday’s game against the Hawks, the Magic also will play seven of 13 games at Amway Center.

“It’s definitely stretch,” center

said. “If you want to be good in this league, you definitely have to win at home. I think so far we’ve been decent, but hopefully we can use this stretch to get some wins and climb back a big up in the rankings.” Point guard

said: “We definitely got to take advantage of finally getting some home games, finally being able to get a couple of days where we can get some practice in. So I’m looking forward to it.”

The current stretch of games becomes even more important when you consider that the schedule will worsen following New Year’s Day.

On Jan. 3, the Magic will host Houston Rockets. Two days later, the Magic will host Cleveland Cavaliers.

Including the matchups against the Rockets and the Cavaliers, the Magic will play nine of 15 games at home.

“We have home games,” coach said. “We can’t look at the quality of opponent. But if you’re going to be a playoff team or make a playoff push, you’ve got to take care of business at home. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing host to the Warriors or a team without a great record, you’ve got to bring it. We’ve got to protect our home court.”

The Magic have said they want to win at least 70 percent of their home games and at least half of their road games.

They opened Wednesday 5-5 at home and 5-10 on the road.

“It’s an opportunity with a lot of home games to get ourselves above .500,” Vogel said.

Wednesday was designated Star Wars Night at Amway Center.

Vucevic is a big Star Wars fan, and he wore a

T-shirt to the arena. His right sock had an image of

and his left sock featured an image of

the Magic’s mascot, opened the night by wearing a Jedi robe similar to the robe wore.