Magic Gaming Dominant Against Raptors Uprising GC

Magic Gaming fortified its defense after acquiring veteran Brandon “ToXsiK” Raudenbush in last week’s trade with Grizz Gaming.

Based on how they performed in their first game with the West Palm Beach, Fla. native, it appears the Magic strengthened their offense as well.

Brendan “Reizey” Hill led four Orlando players in double figures with 21 points as the Magic jumped out to a big advantage early and never looked back in their 72-50 victory over Raptors Uprising GC on Wednesday.

Aside from injecting ToXsiK into the lineup, Magic Gaming made a few other adjustments that clearly paid off.

Emmanuel “UCMANNY” Cruz slid over to the small forward spot and scored 16 points in a shot-creating sharpshooter role. In his second season with Magic Gaming, the New York City native shot 6-of-10 from the field and 2-of-4 from 3-point range.

Another alteration made was at the point guard spot as Reizey, the Magic’s 2019 first round draft pick, went from the shot-creating sharpshooting build to a sharpshooting playmaker, which puts a greater emphasis on passing and ball handling.

“I’m really comfortable on it,” said Reizey, who dished out eight assists and made seven of his nine shots, five coming from downtown. “I’ve been playing all this week on it. It is the best point guard build. As a team, we just didn’t know if I was comfortable enough to be on it yet. Finally, this past week during scrimmages I got to where I was looking pretty good on it, and so the guys were like you know, let’s go out there and see what you can do and it helped me out a lot. It gives me more confidence to go out there and be aggressive and play my game.”

From Tyler, Texas, Reizey has been one of the league’s top performers the last few weeks. He erupted for a career-high 27 points two weeks ago against Pistons GT and has scored over 20 points in three of his last five games. It’s his playmaking and ability to make his teammates better, though, that has made the biggest difference.

“I started the first couple of weeks a little slow,” he said. “We have just been working really hard as a team trying to improve every day. The guys have been helping me out a lot and have been giving me a lot of confidence. I think this is the best ball we have played all year so far and we are really confident going into the rest of the season.”

Cameron “KingCamRoyalty” Ford, meanwhile, dominated in the pure glass cleaner archetype, posting a double-double with 17 points and 15 rebounds. He also had four assists, two blocks and two steals.

The Magic’s defense, as it usually is when they win, was superb against the Raptors, who were held to 15 points in the first half.

Daniel “DT” Tlais, who scored 14 points, recorded six of his team’s 12 steals, while ToXsiK in his Magic debut was stifling. He grabbed five rebounds and collected two steals.

“We feel like now we can kind of open it up on defense,” Magic Gaming Head Coach Jonah Edwards said. “Manny is such an elite defender, moving him to the shot-sharp at the three he can guard the other team’s shot-sharp and can do a good job of it. We saw a lot of that today. I think overall we are just a better defensive team and a lot of that is a credit to ToXsiK and what he brings to the table.”

The Magic are back in action on Thursday when they take on 76ers GC at 7 p.m. With Wednesday’s victory, Central Florida fans get 50 percent off their Papa John’s online order on Thursday using the promo code MGWIN at PapaJohns.com.