Magic Gaming Rallies, Wins Thriller Over Jazz Gaming

You just can never count this team out.

All season, Magic Gaming has withstood adversity. After they lost their first five games, the resilient Magic made lineup adjustments, regrouped and won four straight. Since then, despite a few rocky patches along the journey, Magic Gaming has continued to demonstrate incredible poise.

Perhaps its most impressive showing came on Saturday when it overcame a 15-point halftime deficit and won a thriller, 71-68, over Jazz Gaming.

This wild, nip and tuck contest featured passionate runs by both teams and an abundance of free throws. But, the most important moment of the night came when the Magic’s first round pick and floor general, Christopher “KontruL” Cantrell, buried a go-ahead 3-pointer with 20.1 seconds remaining.

“KontruL is definitely the leader of this team,” teammate Emmanuel “UCMANNY” Cruz said. “He’s always making sure we aren’t moving too fast, controlling the tempo of the game. That shot, that was just greatness right there. He just stepped back and pulled the trigger and it went down.”

Others – including Cameron “KingCamRoyalty” Ford and Bilal “SUPREME PULLER” Almashni – also came up huge down the stretch for the Magic, who led by as much as six in the fourth. KingCamRoyalty put Magic Gaming up one when he drilled a pair of free throws with 57 seconds left and SUPREME PULLER, shortly after KontruL’s big triple, had a monster dunk that gave his squad a four-point advantage.

The Jazz responded, though, as Michael “Stambreezy” Stam connected on a corner three on the ensuing possession. They had a chance to send the game into overtime but Shaka “Yeah I Compete” Browne misfired on a potential game-tying 3-point attempt at the buzzer.

The Magic – behind stifling defense and balanced scoring – outscored the Jazz, 21-7, in the third period.

“We definitely knew that we had to communicate more on defense,” UCMANNY said about his team’s second half adjustments. “We knew offensively it was perfectly fine. It was just going to come down to how many stops we can get. It was Compete and Slaughter (Malik “MrSlaughter01” Leisinger) usually doing most of the work so me and Marley (Jorge “marley213s” Renteria) had to just buckle down and grind it out and get as many stops as possible. We did a good job of that in the second half.”

KontruL and marley213s led the Magic in scoring with 19 points apiece. KingCamRoyalty contributed with 15 points, UCMANNY poured in 11 and SUPREME PULLER had seven.

Next up for Magic Gaming is the “The Ticket,” the second of two mid-season tournaments. Its seed and opponent will be unveiled in the coming days. The team that wins this tournament will automatically qualify for the playoffs, regardless of where they rank in the final regular season standings.