The Magic’s first real test of the season arrives fast, and it comes with a heavy helping of travel.
After Friday night’s game against the Timberwolves at Kia Center, Orlando is staring at a stretch in which it will play 13 of its next 18 games away from home. The run opens Sunday in New York against the NBA defending champions, then keeps rolling with two games in three nights against the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday and Friday.
The schedule briefly swings back to Orlando for a quick back-to-back against the Celtics and Wizards on Nov. 1-2, but that is the only consecutive home set the Magic have at Kia Center until mid-December. Once Boston and Washington are out of the way, Orlando heads out again for its first West Coast trip, one that includes stops in Phoenix, Golden State, Sacramento and Utah.
For first-year coach Sean Sweeney, it’s the kind of road stretch that can shape an early season in a hurry.
Last season, Orlando finished 19-20 away from home under Jamahl Mosley, a mark that landed right in the middle of the league. The Magic also opened that year by dropping their first two road games before settling in and going 5-5 over their first 10 on the road.
As the team gets ready to leave town, there’s also hope Anthony Black can finally make his season debut. The fourth-year guard sat out opening night against the Hawks, missed all four preseason games and was again unavailable Friday against Minnesota after suffering a right ankle sprain during voluntary workouts before training camp.
Sweeney said Friday morning that Black has not hit any bumps in the road during his recovery.
Black went through shootaround Friday and later was spotted in 3-on-3 work with teammates Jevon Carter, Colin Castleton and Alex Morales, along with some staff members.
“No setbacks, no,” Sweeney said about Black. “He’s doing a good job, still ramping up and looked good. So, (we’re) excited with how he’s progressing and when he’s ready to go, we’ll get him out there.”
Sweeney also has a familiar name alongside him on the staff in John Beilein. The veteran coach was added in mid-August as a senior coaching consultant for Sweeney’s first staff in Orlando.
The two had crossed paths briefly in Detroit in 2021 before Sweeney moved on to Jason Kidd’s staff in Dallas. Beilein, 73, last coached in 2023, after spending two years as a senior advisor of player development with the Pistons. Before that, he spent the 2019-20 season as head coach of the Cavaliers and won 278 games at Michigan, the most in school history.
“Our relationship is great,” Sweeney said this week about Beilein. “It’s one that we’ve maintained through the years.
I have a lot of respect for him as a coach, as a man. I love the way he approaches everything each day.”
“I’d say for me, he’s probably too positive some of the time,” Sweeney joked. “But just in general, he’s got a great attitude every day. (He is) someone that I’m really happy to be a part of our program.”
In Other News...
Magic Opener Put One New Backcourt Question Front And Center
Opening night offered the first real look at how Sean Sweeney wants the Orlando offense to function, and it came with the kind of early-season uncertainty that can linger for a while. The Magic are trying a point-guard-by-committee approach, and in the first game the ball moved through a few different hands as the team settled into new rotations and responsibilities.
Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner both found themselves in expanded roles, but the arrangement also exposed how much the Magic still have to sort out in the backcourt and on the wing. Wagner handled more of the creation duty than anyone else before foul trouble shortened his night, while Suggs had an uneven opener that reflected both the opportunity and the growing pains of a new system. [Read more 🡒]
Magic Get An Early Chance To Expose Minnesotas New Identity
Minnesotas new look is already making a statement, and Orlando gets an early chance to see how real it is. After a summer overhaul that pushed the Timberwolves toward a smaller front line and a perimeter-heavy offense, the opener offered an immediate glimpse of the shift, with the ball flying from deep and the roster built to play faster, spread the floor and lean into creation on the perimeter.
For the Magic, that makes this matchup more than just another regular-season measuring stick. Orlando has enough size and physicality to ask questions of a team that has deliberately traded some of its interior heft for spacing, and that contrast should be part of the story all night. The bigger issue for Minnesota is whether this new identity can hold up when opponents can punish them inside or make them win possession battles away from the arc. [Read more 🡒]
Magic Already Face A Worrying Defensive Question After Opener
The opening night loss to the Atlanta Hawks gave Orlando an immediate reminder that its defensive standard has to be sharper than it showed out of the gate. The Magic were left to sort through the film after a late breakdown decided the game, and the postgame mood made clear the issue was bigger than one possession. Players and coaches pointed to the need for better communication, cleaner positioning and a stricter commitment to the teams defensive principles.
For a group that has long treated defense as its foundation, this is the sort of early-season warning that cant be brushed aside. The Magic know the offense will have stretches to find its rhythm, but the defense is supposed to keep them steady while that happens. Instead, the opener left them with a familiar message and an uncomfortable question: how quickly can they turn the lessons from one loss into something more dependable? [Read more 🡒]