Magic roll to fourth straight win
Vucevic leads with 25 points, 17 boards in 118-88 rout of Pelicans.
Seeking their first four-game win streak in three seasons, the Orlando Magic did not mess around.
Jonathan Isaac scored 16 of his career-high 20 points before the end of the first quarter and Evan Fournier added 14 as the Magic sprinted to a 39-11 lead, eventually overwhelming the listless New Orleans Pelicans 118-88 on Tuesday night at the Smoothie King Center.
With its third win in four days — all on the road — Orlando moved 1 1⁄2 games behind the Detroit Pistons for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Magic had not won four in a row since a five-game streak from Nov. 23 to Dec. 5 in 2015.
Orlando will try to match that 2015 run when it hosts Charlotte on Thursday in a true litmus test of its turnaround. The Magic have lost to the Hornets 13 consecutive times, including two blowout defeats earlier this season.
Tuesday night’s matchup with New Orleans was never close after Orlando went on a 29-3 run that spanned almost all of the first quarter. Fournier hit three 3-pointers and Isaac sank two, while center Nikola Vucevic did a little bit of everything, finishing the quarter with seven points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals.
The Magic led by at least 14 the rest of the way and by 31, 92-61, at the start of the fourth quarter. The final margin of victory was their largest of the year.
Vucevic had a game-high 25 points and 17 rebounds. His counterpart, Anthony Davis, managed only three points on 1 of 9 shooting for the dysfunctional Pelicans.
Now that the Magic’s biggest postseason goals are within reach, there is a lot more pressure every night to deliver. Wins mean more, losses are more costly.
Despite a passion to reach the playoffs, Vucevic said his teammates are competing the right way and don’t look too far ahead.
“We don’t really talk about it,” he said of the playoff push. “We know it’s there. We just take it one game at a time. Each game, we try to approach it as just focusing on that specific game.”