ALBRIGHT: How about an Orlando Magic trick?

Shot clock violations, blocked shots, and steals, oh my!

The Orlando Magic defense made the Charlotte Hornets’ offense disappear.

Ta Da.

It was gone.

The Magic reduced one of the National Basketball Association’s hottest teams, a group scoring 116 points per game, to a team wanting no part of what the Magic brought to the floor in the NBA Eastern Conference Play-In game for the 8th seed inside the Kia Center Friday night in Orlando.

Charlotte lacked the spacing and passing lanes needed to rev up an offensive engine responsible for capturing the season series with Orlando, 3 games to 1. They were outscored by their hosts 121–90. Yes, 31 points.

Amazon basketball analyst and former Magic coach Stan Van Gundy lovingly gushed about the Magic on the broadcast one minute before halftime.

“This is the best the Orlando Magic have looked all year,” he said.

How good were the Magic?

Head coach Jamal Mosley said it was an incredibly impressive effort.

“They respond,” he said after his group fell to the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night in Philadelphia. “It showed up first and foremost on the defensive end. Anthony Black and Jalen Suggs were high-level, high-level, high-level defensively.”

Mosley credited his team’s performance to a sense of urgency and desperation.

“When you know you are either going home or extending your season, that is what it looks like,” he said. “There are no second chances, and these guys took ownership of it — their communication, their toughness, and their togetherness. If we would have said at the beginning of the year you would get the eighth seed with all the injuries and after everything that happened, would you take it? You would. No matter what happens. These guys showed up and did it the right way.”

Orlando’s dominance forced Hornets’ head coach Charles Lee to concede the game as he pulled both LaMelo Ball and Kon Knueppel, two of the team’s leading scorers, with just over 11 minutes left in the game.

The Hornets never mounted a sustained drive to make the game an interesting contest.

Many shots were ill-advised, ill-conceived, and too many came from beyond the arc. Some were off balance, while others were strongly contested. On the night, the Hornets shot 34 percent from the field, including an abysmal 27 percent from three. The Magic made sure many of those shot attempts were one-and-done, as they outrebounded the Hornets, 49–34, including 38 defensive rebounds.

Ball attempted to blame his Hornets teammates and himself for the performance after the game.

“We dug ourselves a hole too big, and we couldn’t get out of it,” Ball said.

In reality, the Hornets were never in the game from the outset. Brandon Miller’s 3-ball gave the visitors a one-point lead, 5–4, before the Magic made sure they earned the first-round matchup with the Eastern Conference’s top-seed Detroit Pistons.

Lee told his team this was not a satisfactory product.

“That was not our best effort tonight, credit Orlando,” he said. “They played well.”

Orlando’s physical, body-to-body approach eliminated many of the Hornets’ scoring options.

Brandon Miller confirmed the Magic’s effort bothered his group in the first half.

“In the second half, we picked up our energy a little bit, but it was too late to pick our energy back up. It is a good learning experience,” he said.

The Magic’s Paolo Banchero and his group followed up the defensive aggression in the first quarter with an offensive flurry.

Orlando raced out to a 27–10 lead, led by 31 at halftime, and the Hornets never trimmed the lead past 20 afterward. Shots continued to be ill-advised, ill-conceived, and panicked at times in the second half.

Mosley said it was a huge confidence boost to see his team take control early in the contest.

“That is what you have to do to start the game,” he said. “You have to set the tone right away. Our guys did a very good job of setting the tone early.”

Outside of Ball, no one scored more than 15 points for the Hornets. Ball, though, didn’t score any consequential points after his two points in the opening quarter. His 21 other points were scored well after the game was in hand.

Contact Joe Albright at josephpalbright3@gmail.com.