Franz Wagner did not need to wait for Orlando’s offense to become complicated before finding its cleanest answer. With 1:32 left in the first quarter, he fed Goga Bitadze for an alley-oop dunk. With 4.9 seconds remaining in the same period, he found Bitadze for another one. The Magic had discovered a profitable connection, and they kept returning to it.
Wagner finished with 35 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds as Orlando defeated Milwaukee 107–99 at Kia Center on Friday for its first home win of the season. The passing deserves as much attention as the scoring. Bitadze’s finishes gave Orlando points created by Wagner without requiring Wagner to take another shot himself.
Bitadze scored a season-high 12 points and made all five of his field-goal attempts in 18 minutes. Wagner supplied the assists for two of his first-quarter dunks and a second-quarter layup. Tristan da Silva assisted another dunk in the second quarter, while Suggs later found Bitadze for an alley-oop.
The center gave several teammates an efficient place to send the ball while Orlando’s outside shooting was less dependable.
Wagner had plenty of scoring work left. He made 13 of 22 shots and all six of his free throws. With 42.9 seconds remaining in the game, his running layup moved Orlando ahead 104–94 after Milwaukee had cut the difference to eight. Even on a night when his passing stood out, the Magic still needed his own finishing to close the door.
The team numbers support that reading without turning one game into a blueprint. Orlando finished with 29 assists, nine more than Milwaukee, shot 45 percent from the field and scored 44 points in the paint. The 15-for-50 performance from 3-point range was ordinary at best, so the Magic needed another way to keep the offense moving.
Bitadze’s perfect shooting near the basket supplied it, and Wagner’s decisions made those chances possible.
Desmond Bane supplied much of the outside production with 21 points and six makes in 10 three-point attempts. Wagner repeatedly assisted Bane’s perimeter makes during the middle quarters. Bane also assisted Wagner’s layup early in the third. Their contributions worked in both directions, while giving Orlando a different scoring option from Bitadze’s finishes near the basket.
That combination gave Orlando two credible ways to punish Milwaukee: Wagner could finish possessions himself, or his pass could send the ball to Bane outside or Bitadze inside. It also made Bane’s 21 points more valuable than a simple scoring line. He did not have to create every shot from a dead stop, and Wagner did not have to solve every possession alone.
