SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Orlando Magic didn’t light up the scoreboard the way they have at times inside Golden 1 Center, but they did get exactly what they needed: a stop to a four-game slide.
Behind big nights from Franz Wagner, Desmond Bane and Anthony Black, Orlando pulled away late for a 107-100 win over the Kings on Tuesday.
The Magic arrived short-handed and got even thinner before tipoff. Tristan da Silva landed on the injury report Tuesday morning with a calf strain, leaving Orlando without Paolo Banchero, Jalen Suggs and da Silva. That meant just 11 available players, including nine on standard contracts and two two-way players.
Colin Castleton, the other two-way player, never got into the game. Alex Morales, meanwhile, logged a career-high 28 minutes and made the most of them, finishing with seven points and hitting his first 3-pointer with 7:08 left in the first half.
Four of Orlando’s five starters played at least 31 minutes. Goga Bitadze was on the floor for 15 minutes, while Nikola Vucevic posted a season-high 18 minutes.
The Kings still had their own bright spot in rookie Darius Acuff, who was excellent again despite the loss. Zach LaVine was also strong for Sacramento.
Orlando spent much of the night putting Acuff in the crosshairs defensively, and the rookie responded with 29 points on 10-of-21 shooting and 4-of-9 from 3-point range. The Magic mostly used drop coverage against him, and he kept finding the gaps whenever they brought one of their three bigs into the action.
When Orlando switched or hedged, there was a little more resistance, but Acuff still found his spots with regularity. The pressure eventually showed up in the turnover column.
Sacramento had 18 turnovers with more than three minutes left in the third quarter, and the Magic turned those mistakes into 33 points. The Kings finished with 21 turnovers, the most a Magic opponent has committed this season.
Offensively, Orlando made its intentions obvious from the opening tip when Acuff was on the floor: attack him, force him to defend, and keep him involved in every action.
Franz Wagner led that charge. He finished with 31 points on 11-of-23 shooting, along with seven rebounds and seven assists. The Kings rookie committed only two fouls, but his size disadvantage created space Orlando kept exploiting.
The Magic piled up 56 points in the paint while shooting 56.0 percent there, including 10 points from inside the restricted area. They attempted only four non-paint 2s.
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