The worst team in the NBA will square off against one of the league’s more disappointing clubs when the Orlando Magic visit the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night.
The Trail Blazers will aim to defeat Orlando for the 11th straight time. Portland recorded a 98-88 win at Orlando on Jan. 17 in the teams’ only other meeting of the season.
Despite splitting their past eight games, the Magic own the league’s worst record (12-43) with one-third of the season still to go. Orlando has dropped its past two games, both at home, by an average of 26.5 points.
Those blowouts by the Memphis Grizzlies (135-115) and Boston Celtics (116-83) followed a stretch of four wins in six games, the Magic’s best stretch of the season.
“You’re never as good as you are when you win or as bad as you think you are when you lose, so our guys understand that and we’ll bounce back,” first-year Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said after Sunday’s loss to the Celtics. “It’s just about guys staying the course and staying positive. It’s a tied-together group so they are going to continue to push and fight for one another.”
The Trail Blazers can relate to one-sided losses. They were crushed 137-108 by the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night.
Portland trailed by as many as 18 points in the opening quarter and was seldom competitive while losing for the fifth straight game and seventh time in eight outings.
The Trail Blazers expected to be a playoff team under new coach Chauncey Billups but instead sit at 21-33 and in 11th place in the Western Conference, just outside a play-in spot.
Portland was already underachieving before star Damian Lillard underwent surgery for an abdominal injury and now the organization is in the midst of doing some reshaping prior to Thursday’s trading deadline.
The Trail Blazers traded veterans Norman Powell and Robert Covington to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday in exchange for veteran Eric Bledsoe, injury-prone Justise Winslow and rookie Keon Johnson, plus a 2025 second-round draft pick. Portland also was able to shed salary in the deal.
There is heavy speculation that Trail Blazers shooting guard CJ McCollum and big man Jusuf Nurkic are potential trade targets of other teams leading up to the deadline.
Nurkic had a one-word answer when asked about the team’s trade with the Clippers — “interesting” — and surely knows more moves could occur.
“I think we understand that we’re not going the direction we all wanted,” said Nurkic, “but I think the team, organization, is taking steps they think is the best for the team.”
Guard Anfernee Simons has scored 19 points in each of the past three games. He has flourished since Lillard last played on Dec. 31 and topped 20 or more points on 10 occasions in January, with a high of 43.
Orlando has its own young gun in rookie guard Jalen Suggs, who scored 17 points in each of the past two setbacks. Suggs, who played at Gonzaga last season and is returning to the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday, has reached double digits in 26 of 34 games played.
Suggs missed six-plus weeks with a fractured right thumb before returning in mid-January.
The Magic are building around Suggs and fellow young players Cole Anthony, Franz Wagner and Wendell Carter Jr.
Orlando did its own fire sale before last season’s trading deadline when Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier were all sent packing in three separate deals.
Nurkic contributed 21 points and 22 rebounds in Portland’s win over the Magic last month.
Orlando last defeated the Trail Blazers on Jan. 13, 2017 — a 115-109 win in Portland.
