ORLANDO — A four-day December trip to the sun and blue skies of Florida didn’t have any of the expected regenerative qualities the Raptors might have envisioned.
On the scoreboard the result couldn’t have been worse. From a health respect, things got worse instead of better.
The Orlando Magic are supposed to be one of those teams more interested in lottery luck than wins, but you would hardly know it based on the past weekend.
After an abysmal defensive effort Friday, the Raptors cleaned things up nicely on that end but had no answer offensively when the Magic came out with another focused defensive effort of their own.
The result was a totally lost weekend when the Raptors were in need of anything positive.
The magnitude of Sunday’s 111-99 loss was only made worse by the pre-game news that defensive lynchpin O.G. Anunoby was out of the lineup with a left hip injury, the severity of which will only be known after further tests are conducted upon the return to Toronto on Monday.
This was no Disney cruise for the visiting Raps.
Early on Sunday it appeared the Raptors might just have the response expected of them following an all-or-nothing performance Friday that had a few lower lows than highs.
The Raptors had a 19-18 lead after 12 minutes but more importantly had set the tone where the Magic knew there weren’t going to be any easy baskets, unlike Friday.
Even without their defensive anchor in Anunoby, the Raptors’ defence was miles better than it had been Friday with Anunoby in the mix.
Franz Wagner, who got just about whatever he wanted in the first three quarters on Friday was held to just five points in the first half.
The beginning of the end though proved to be Pascal Siakam’s fourth foul of the night just over four minutes into the fourth quarter.
Without Siakam to lean on, coupled with the loss of Anunoby who has been a bigger offensive factor than any season before this one, an already struggling offence became even harder to watch.
The Magic immediately went on a 14-2 run opening up a lead they would hold on to for the remainder of the game.
Gary Trent Jr. would lead all Toronto scorers as he rejoined the starting five with Anunoby in street clothes.
Trent Jr. had 24 in the loss and a team-high three triples, but he didn’t have a lot of company in that department.
The Raptors were good on just 6-of-24 three-pointers continuing a disturbing trend of sub 30% shooting from three over the past eight games.
The Magic, meanwhile, made 14-of-their 31 three-point attempts to keep the Raptors in chase mode most of the evening.
Franz Wanger, who dominated the Raptors on Friday with 34 points, had another team-best 23 in this one but it was the bench support from Mo Bamba and Cole Anthony that turned this one decidedly in Orlando’s favour.
Bamba had 18 and nine rebounds in just 23 minutes while Anthony pitched in with 14 as the Orlando reserves dominated Toronto’s bench.
With the loss, the Raptors fell back below .500 to 13-14. They’ll get a chance to right the ship on Wednesday at home when they host Sacramento in the first of three home games.
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