On Tuesday, the Washington Wizards face the Orlando Magic, who are returning home from a difficult four-game road trip, in an effort to break a skid that could jeopardize their postseason hopes.
With Saturday’s 132-118 defeat to Sacramento, Washington (32-39) lost its fifth decision in six outings. As of Monday’s action, the Wizards were 1.5 games behind Chicago for the final Eastern Conference play-in tournament spot due to their recent slide.
Due to illness, Porzingis, who is averaging a career-high 22.8 points per game, did not play against the Kings. Prior to the match on Tuesday, he is listed as day-to-day.
After a three-game stretch in which he scored no more than 17 points in any one game, including seven in a 23-point loss to Cleveland on Friday, Kyle Kuzma scored 33 points against Sacramento.
In Washington’s final 11 games, it will likely be crucial to find consistency from its leading trio of Kuzma, Porzingis, and Bradley Beal, who are all averaging more than 21 points per game. In three of the five losses during the current skid, the Wizards scored fewer than their average of 112.8 points per game and failed to score 100 points twice.
In contrast, Orlando (29-43) enters Tuesday’s matchup having gone 2-6 overall and 1-3 on the road through the Western Conference. In those six defeats, the Magic gave up 124.3 points on average.
The Wizardry shut that stretch by restricting the Los Angeles Lakers to 111 focuses on Sunday, yet Orlando assembled only 105 – – its most minimal result since Feb. 27 – – in the last date of the excursion.
In the defeat, Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero each scored 21 points. This was the fifth time in the last eight games that an Orlando contest had been decided by a single digit. The Magic defeated Miami by 12 points in overtime in one of the two exceptions.
With an average of 20 points per game and the second-best rebounding average on the team (6.6 per game), Banchero is likely to win Rookie of the Year. As Banchero heads into the final lap, he can turn into the primary player from Orlando to win that honor since Mike Mill operator in 2000-01.
