Inside the highlight reel that saved the Magics season

The video opens with Paolo Banchero, then a Duke freshman, pump-faking, driving left baseline and blowing by a defender for a monster two-handed dunk against North Carolina in the 2022 Final Four.

Last Friday morning, before the Orlando Magic‘s biggest shootaround of the season at their team facility, head coach Jamahl Mosley showed his players a video. He played a three-minute highlight reel of some of his players’ own NCAA tournament magic from back in the day.

Each player who had been in the tournament had two clips each in the video made by the team’s video coordinator: Jonathan Isaac throwing down a dunk while at Florida State, Moritz Wagner hitting a 3 while being fouled for Michigan and Desmond Bane drilling a deep 3 for TCU. The highlight reel continued with Tristan da Silva at Colorado, Franz Wagner at Michigan, Wendell Carter Jr. at Duke and others.

Finally, the best highlight for last: Jalen Suggs‘ unforgettable buzzer-beater from 40 feet near the half-court logo to stun UCLA in the Final Four in 2021 for Gonzaga.

“Suggs for the win!” is the last thing the Magic players hear of CBS’ Jim Nantz call right before the ball banks in.

The Magic had come off a bitter play-in loss to the Philadelphia 76ers last Wednesday in the matchup between the No. 7 and 8 seeds. Making matters worse, travel issues kept them from returning home until 4 a.m.

The players were focused but exhausted. The video provided a welcome respite from the previous two losses that had included a disheartening 113-108 loss to the Boston Celtics, who had rested their rotation players on the final day of the regular season. Orlando’s playoff hopes were on the line in a few hours against the Charlotte Hornets, who were coming off a thrilling overtime win over the Miami Heat.

“The Philly game was a terrible feeling,” Banchero told ESPN. “For myself, the team, we felt like we let it go.

“But we realized the season ain’t over.”

For a team that was built to win now and expected to be a top-four team in the East after the offseason blockbuster trade for Bane, the Magic carried the weight of not letting their season end in the play-in. It was a four-point game with 3:25 to go in Philadelphia before Orlando missed six of its last seven shots and wilted. Another sinking loss would send the team into a summer of uncertainty with chatter already increasing around the league among some coaches and executives about Mosley’s future.

“I’d be lying if I said that I did listen to any of it,” Mosley told ESPN of the outside noise surrounding the Magic before that win over Charlotte. “I’ve said this before, just wait a week and the narrative always changes.”

Mosley had the video made to show his team that they’ve battled, thrived and even created unforgettable moments before. Since then, the Magic are doing what they can to produce their own “One Shining Moment” this postseason. The Magic turned their season around by destroying the Hornets 121-90 to clinch the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Orlando followed that up with a Game 1 112-101 stunner over the top-seeded Pistons in Detroit. The Magic hope to keep it rolling in Game 2 on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) by continuing to give Detroit a small taste of its own medicine.

After the Game 1 surprise in Detroit, Banchero shouted in the locker room, “Hey don’t start drinking the Kool-Aid!” But there is no denying that the Magic found something Friday in the win over the Hornets. What they’ve rediscovered is their blueprint for success — stifling defense with size and length, brute physicality and a swagger that gets under the skin of opponents.

“They came out ready from the jump,” said Pistons All-Star center Jalen Duren, who was limited to eight points and seven rebounds. “We didn’t really meet their intensity. They’ve been playing with their backs against the walls, so they were already rolling.”

Along with the inspirational video, Mosley also showed his team bonus tournament highlights of assistant coaches such as God Shammgod at Providence and Lionel Chalmers at Xavier. The video not only set the tone, but it loosened up the players with their hearty laughs, especially over vintage footage of Chalmers dazzling in 2004.

“The one that got me going was they showed Lionel,” an excited Banchero said. “It was grainy, but the move he did, he came down in transition, went real fast, then slow, hesi pullup for 3 … it was just a clean-ass shot. I was like damn. That got [everybody] going.”

Suggs said it was the perfect mood-setter for the Magic.

“It makes everybody feel a bit better,” Suggs told ESPN of the video. “You remember where you came from. Mose is really good at that, giving us reminders of who we are, our complete basketball journey, not just whether it be the frustrations or the heaviness of right now.”

On Friday night, the Magic looked like a completely different team. Banchero knew things had shifted after Carter buried two early 3-pointers off Banchero assists and then the Magic star followed up with an 8-foot turnaround jumper and a 26-foot 3-pointer of his own. Sandwiched in between those shots were two demoralizing shot-clock violation turnovers by Charlotte before the Hornets called for a timeout down 27-10 with 3:43 to go in the first quarter.

“Our energy was different,” Banchero said of that moment. “It felt like they weren’t really prepared for that level of physicality. That time out, we were just like, ‘Look, what we’re doing right now, we need to do this s— the whole game. It needs to be this, every game.’

“In Philly, we played decent. We played hard enough, but just not [with] as much swag as we should have, included myself on that.”

Banchero had 18 points but shot 7-for-22 from the field, including 0-for-5 from 3, with six turnovers against the Sixers. The 2022 No. 1 pick said he refused to settle for anything against Charlotte, believing a superstar should play aggressively in a do-or-die scenario. Coming out and bullying the Hornets, Banchero had 25 points, six assists and five rebounds while making 9 of 17 shots.

And in Game 1 against Detroit, Banchero scored all 23 of his points in the first three quarters before taking only two shots in the fourth but largely making the right read and letting Franz Wagner take advantage of mismatches inside. Wagner scored 11 points in the fourth.

“When Paolo plays like that, manipulates the game, that sets great players apart,” Wagner said after Game 1. “He led us all game and when he’s playing like that, I think we’re tough to beat.”

The two games were different for Banchero, but the result was the same. Banchero did what he had to do to get the Magic the win.

Give Mosley, and the Magic’s video coordinator, an assist with their Magic moment video. They hope to keep this run going. No matter what happens in Game 2, the Magic return to Orlando with home-court advantage looking to create more April madness.

“It was just us remembering and realizing that our season’s on the line,” Banchero said of the video. “Coach’s point was just telling everybody that we’ve all been in this situation before, whether in the pros, college, where it’s do-or-die, win-or-go home type of game. And we all performed in that moment.”