ORLANDO, Fla. — Cole Anthony came off the Magic bench with 26 points and six assists to lead Orlando to a 120-95 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night in the first game of the NBA play-in tournament.
Paolo Banchero had 17 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists for the Magic, and Wendell Carter Jr. added 19 points and seven rebounds. Anthony Black, who also came off the bench, scored 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the Magic’s first appearance in a play-in game.
Earning the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed after a 41-41 regular season, the Magic will play in a first-round playoff series against the Celtics starting Sunday at Boston. Orlando split its four games against the defending NBA champs this season, but the Celtics rested their top six players in a loss at Orlando last week.
“It’s a great opportunity to play against the best team in the league, and they’re the champs still until somebody beats ’em,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “What they present is a lot of challenges, and we have to try to find a way to figure that out.”
Trae Young led the Hawks with 28 points and six assists before getting two technical fouls and an automatic ejection with 4:47 left in the contest.
“I thought we did a good job on Paolo and Franz [Wagner],” said Hawks coach Quin Snyder, “and they had some other players who really stepped up and made plays.”
The Hawks, who have reached the playoffs through the play-in route in two of the past three campaigns, will compete at home Friday night for a chance at the eighth playoff spot against the winner of Wednesday night’s tilt in Chicago between the Bulls and the Miami Heat.
Banchero and Black produced most of the offense and the Hawks scored just two points in the final 6 minutes of the first quarter, and the Magic led by as many as 22 late in the first half.
“It was a fun game, a big-time game, a unique type of challenge,” Banchero said. “I was interested to see how they were going to try to guard me. You could tell in the first quarter I was trying to get my teammates involved, moving the ball, and those guys got going. They carried us throughout the game.”
The Hawks, though, cut the gap to three and had a chance to tie the score when they turned it over with 2:36 left in the third quarter.
“They went on their own run and we weathered the storm. We didn’t let them back in the game from that point on,” Anthony said. “We got stops, we pushed the pace and we held a really good offensive team to 90 points.”
Anthony, who averaged 9.4 points in an injury-plagued season, made 10-of-17 shots including 4-of-9 3-pointers.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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