Hooray, the Magic aren’t going to get swept by the Bucks!

The team’s marketing mantra is “Pure Magic,” but you know and I know that everybody is going to consider this victory to be just “pure luck.”

The Orlando Magic’s resounding, confounding, unbelievable, inconceivable 122-110 win over the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday will no doubt be called a fluke, a quirk, a stroke of luck and a gift from the gods.

Even most Magic fans I know thought their beleaguered team was going to get swept right out of the playoffs. And, likewise, nobody will give them a chance in Game 2; just like nobody gave them a chance in Game 1.

I’ll admit it, I didn’t them a chance and neither did you. The national media didn’t

give them a chance, the local media didn’t give them a chance and the wise guys in Vegas didn’t give them a chance.

According to the oddsmakers, the 14-point underdog Magic came into this series as the longest longshot in the playoffs. When I asked former Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, now an analyst for NBA TV and TNT, on Tuesday to come up with a scenario in which the Magic somehow could beat the Bucks in a series, he hemmed and hawed and then replied, “At least in recent years, I don’t know that I’ve seen a team more overmatched in a playoff series than the Magic are in this series. … I’d say for them to have a chance you’d have to have an injury to Giannis.”

In fact, the NBA’s reigning MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, played 35 minutes and finished with 31 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists for Milwaukee, but the Magic somehow, someway not only still won the game; they dominated it.

The Magic were supposed to “Fear the Deer” but instead they came out on Tuesday and “Smeared the Deer.”

Are you kidding me?

Did this really happen? Well, since I’m reading the box score right now, I guess it did.

OK, then, how does something like this happen?

How does a banged-up, beaten-up team like the Magic, playing without Jonathan Isaac and Aaron Gordon and Michael Carter-Williams and Mo Bamba, beat arguably the most talented and deepest team in the league by double digits? This is a Magic team, after all, that was swept by the Bucks during the regular season by an average margin of 17 points.

It may sound corny, but it just goes to show what can be accomplished when you believe in yourself even when nobody else does. It’s like Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Before the series started, I asked Nikola Vucevic if it bothered him that nobody was giving the Magic a snowball’s chance in Key West of even winning a game in this series.

“I don’t care what other people have to say,” Vooch said. “… People have their opinions. Unfortunately, nowadays, too many people have opinions.”

Vucevic has heard unflattering opinions about him and his team for his entire career. The nattering naysayers of negativity were at their height after the 4-1 first-round playoff loss to Toronto last year when Vucevic, the Magic’s best player, played his worst basketball.

He went from shooting 55% from the floor and averaging 20.8 points per game during the regular season to 38.8 percent and 11.2 points per game against the Raptors. He vowed to learn from last year’s humbling playoff experience and make himself a better player because of it.

So far, so good.

He scored a playoff career-high 35 points and had 14 rebounds in Game 1 against the Bucks. He muscled his way inside to score in the paint and he stepped outside to hit 5-of-8 threes. He seemed to know exactly what Milwaukee’s leaguebest defense was doing at all times.

“He played out of his mind,” Antetokounmpo said of Vooch.

“He put a lot into this,” Magic coach Steve Clifford said of Vooch’s post-pandemic preparation before the Magic entered the Disney bubble. “We had a number of guys when we were working out at Amway Center [before the season resumed] who were there every day, and Vooch was at the top of the list. He made big play after big play today. I’m not surprised because of his preparation for this playoff series. He’s on top of things. In our final walkthrough, he asked two or three questions which you could only ask if you had been watching a ton of film. He’s ready.”

At least for this one incredible game, the Magic’s entire team was ready, but it was just one game and one victory.

Be honest, do you really think they can win another one?

Or do you think it’s going to be like last year when the Magic won Game 1 against the Raptors and then lost four in a row?

“We all believe we can win this series,” Magic point guard Markelle Fultz said. “This isn’t ‘he said, she said’ where we’re listening to the outsiders. We have a group of guys who believe in each other.”

What about you, Orlando?

Do you believe in Magic? Pure Magic?

Or was Tuesday just a quirky happenstance of pure luck?