ORLANDO, Fla. — Cole Anthony tore off the tape wrapped around his left ankle, leaned back in his chair inside the Orlando Magic locker room and finally, at 10:57 Tuesday night, took a deep breath and savored what he and his teammates just accomplished.
They had defeated the Atlanta Hawks 120-95 in the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament opener, with Anthony playing a starring role. In an intense matchup in which Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner struggled to score, and with the Magic offense stumbling, Anthony may have saved their season. He poured in 26 points and dished out six assists.
“I ain’t going to lie,” Anthony said, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile. “That felt so good.”
Anthony’s 2024-25 season, like the season before that, has been a rocky one. Even with starting point guard Jalen Suggs out with a season-ending knee injury, Anthony sometimes has found himself scrounging for minutes. Cory Joseph, a 33-year-old signed during the offseason to add depth and a veteran presence, now starts at point guard. It hasn’t helped that Anthony has dealt in recent weeks with what the team has labeled a foot injury.
Anthony never needed a reminder about how difficult this season has been, but he received one anyway last weekend, on the night before the regular-season finale. Anthony and his dad, former longtime NBA guard Greg Anthony, went to dinner at STK Steakhouse in Midtown Atlanta. His dad — never someone to hold back with the truth — warned him that he might not be in the Magic’s postseason rotation.
But coach Jamahl Mosley, Banchero and Wagner wound up needing him. Orlando built a 22-point lead late in the second quarter only to see Trae Young and the Hawks recover while the Magic’s temperamental offense ground to a halt. In the third quarter’s opening 9 minutes, 30 seconds, Orlando made only four of its 15 shots. The Hawks whittled their deficit to 71-68, and the Magic looked timid, almost afraid to make a mistake or take a shot.
Mosley, sticking with the rotation he had sketched out entering the game, subbed Cole Anthony back in.
Anthony had noticed that the Magic offense had slowed its pace and had started to play more of a halfcourt game against a set defense. He told the other Magic players on the court — Anthony Black, Gary Harris, Wagner and Jonathan Isaac — they needed to push the ball upcourt whenever they could and create crossmatches whenever possible.
Fourteen seconds later, Anthony drove to the basket, lowered his left shoulder into defender Caris LeVert and scored on a floater over LeVert’s outstretched left arm.
A few sequences later, he dribbled upcourt, accelerated past Atlanta’s Vit Krejci and scored on a layup between Georges Niang and Onyeka Okongwu.
Black, Isaac and Wendell Carter Jr. had provided big boosts on the defensive end, but Anthony provided the jolt the offense needed. When everyone else looked tentative, he looked decisive. He scored 17 of his team-high 26 points in the game’s final 15 minutes.
When Anthony drained a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, it extended the lead to 85-75, and the announced crowd of 18,846 inside Kia Center roared.
Although the Magic have an elite defense, they tend to struggle on the other end of the floor. They finished the regular season last leaguewide in 3-point makes per game and last in 3-point shooting percentage. Anthony finished fifth on the team in 3-point accuracy, making 35.3 percent of his attempts, but even that figure ranked below the league average of 36.0 percent.
“It’s been up-and-down for him,” Mosley said. “But just his energy, his spark, his juice, what he provides for this team coming off that bench, he plays fearlessly and that’s how we need him to continue to play.”
Orlando drafted Anthony 15th in 2020, and he had spent much of his first two NBA seasons as the team’s starting point guard. But the arrival of Suggs in 2021 and Black in 2023 cut into Anthony’s minutes. Anthony has a level of dynamism to his offensive game that Suggs and Black do not have, but Suggs and Black are taller and are among the league’s best perimeter defenders.
Watching from the bench at times has been difficult.
On Tuesday, though, the Hawks focused their defense on getting the ball out of Banchero’s hands, and when Banchero wasn’t on the court, the Hawks concentrated on stopping Wagner. Banchero and Wagner combined to score 30 points on 10-of-28 shooting, and Anthony filled the void.
“It was awesome, and we need that from him, to be ready and plug in and give us instant offense like that and just make the right play,” Wagner said. “Whether it’s hitting shots or creating for everybody else, I thought he did a good job of just making the right play and being aggressive.”
Now Anthony and his teammates will prepare for a tougher challenge, a first-round series against the defending champion Boston Celtics, beginning Sunday. Magic players know what to expect from the playoffs, having stretched the Cleveland Cavaliers last postseason to a Game 7 and a heartbreaking defeat in the winner-take-all finale in Ohio.
Anthony also has a bit of inside information about what a playoff game inside TD Garden looks and sounds like. Last June, he attended Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Boston as the Celtics clinched the title with a 106-88 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. He loved the atmosphere.
“It was a crazy scene,” Anthony said. “Even pulling up to the arena it was packed outside. It was packed! And then we got inside, and it was packed! It’s not just packed. It was loud. Everyone was hyped to be there. It was really cool.”
A few days from now, Anthony will be inside TD Garden again for the playoffs, right in the middle of the action.
This time, no one, not even his dad, will question whether Mosley will consider leaving Anthony out of the Magic’s rotation. Anthony erased any doubt Tuesday night, giving his team a critical boost when it needed it the most.
(Photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)