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By John DentonApril 13, 2016
CHARLOTTE – Tonight’s regular-season finale between the Orlando Magic and Charlotte Hornets was originally slated to be televised nationally and thought to potentially feature a win-and-get-in dynamic as it relates to the playoffs.
Instead, the Hornets will be moving on to the postseason, while the Magic will be on the outside of the playoffs looking in again this spring.
Just watching the playoffs in the weeks ahead might prove to be difficult for players of the Magic – many of whom expected the season to continue well beyond tonight.
“You always have that `what if’ when you’re not in the playoffs, especially beating some of the playoff teams that we have later in the season,” said power forward/center Jason Smith, whose Magic have whipped Miami, Memphis, Indiana and Chicago while winning six of the last nine down the stretch. “You don’t want to be that guys saying, `Aw, we could have been better than that team.’ We want to be the team in the playoffs fighting to get a championship. But we’re doing great things at the end of this season and we’re looking forward to getting our off-season work in because we have bright things coming to us in the future.”
Orlando could see the return of forward Aaron Gordon tonight if he receives final clearance from doctors following the concussion that he suffered last Wednesday against Detroit. Gordon, 20, has been brought along slowly in the NBA’s concussion protocol, and he was out on the court with the team for its final walk-through session on Wednesday.
“It was a lot of emotion (last Wednesday) because I thought my season was going to be over, but I’m back and I’m ready,” Gordon said. “I love playing. There’s no reason not to play.”
ESPN ultimately dropped the plans to televise tonight’s game nationally, instead choosing the Boston-Miami matchup that will have a big bearing on the Eastern Conference playoff seeding. Atlanta (48-33), Miami (48-33), Boston (47-34) and Charlotte (47-34) are locked into a battle for the seeds 3-6.
Orlando wishes it had playoff positioning to worry about, and it thought that was very much possible following a promising 19-13 start to the season. However, the Magic suffered through a 2-15 swoon in January and early February, including a 120-116 overtime loss to Charlotte on January 22 in which they led by as much as 19 points.
“They looked great early, as did a lot of teams,” said Hornets forward Marvin Williams, who has had a strong season for Charlotte as a 3-point specialist. “Throughout the course of a season, sometimes you get hot early and sometimes you get hot late and you have rough spots, but that’s the beauty of a NBA season. (The Magic) have a great team over there and I definitely expect them to be there (in the playoffs) in the future.”
