Magic Gaming Rolls Past Raptors Uprising GC in TIPOFF Group Play

ORLANDO – If we’ve learned anything from the first week of the 5v5 portion of the NBA 2K League season, it’s that Magic Gaming is nearly impossible to defend when they’re playing their best. One may even argue that they have the most potent offense in the league when they are clicking on all cylinders.

And that they were on Tuesday night in a 75-61 victory over Raptors Uprising GC for their third win in TIPOFF group play. Orlando made 31 of its 38 floor shots, including going 8-for-11 from 3-point range.

“I feel like we have the best offense in the league,” center Devin “Scoreo” Lawrence said. “I feel like we haven’t even played our best ball yet. There’s still some mistakes we make on the offensive end – whether it’s a turnover, a wide-open missed shot. I feel like we can still get better on that end of the court.”

In each of their three wins so far in 5v5, Magic Gaming hasn’t missed more than three first-half shots. They went 16-for-19 prior to intermission against the Raptors.

Leading the league in assists is Joshua “unguardable” Hunter, who dished out 15 of them in Tuesday’s win to go along with scoring 22 points. Orlando, as a team, racked up 25 dimes, 14 more than Toronto.

“He’s very unorthodox and outside of the box,” Jarvis “Simptoms” Thompson said about unguardable, an early 5v5 season MVP candidate. “He does things that a lot of people wouldn’t think to do. He’s very unpredictable. You got a player like that, it’s hard to game plan for. As you can see, teams struggle to do it every game we play.”

Matthew “Matty” Grant made all seven of his shots from the field for 17 points, while Scoreo notched another double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Simptoms scored 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

While Orlando controlled momentum most of the way, it wasn’t until the midway point of the fourth quarter when they blew the game open. After Toronto pulled within six at 57-51 with 4 ½ minutes left, the Magic responded with a 12-3 run to seal the victory.

“It was motivation. We knew we wanted to be 3-2 instead of 2-3,” Simptoms said. “That was our mindset coming into the game, so we said we had to go out there and execute. We knew we had control of the game going into the fourth, and we said it’s time to open the floodgates, really blow the game open and that’s what we did.”

Anthony “Gazulli” Gonzalez, the 10th overall pick in the 2023 NBA 2K League Draft, led the Raptors with 22 points.

Magic Gaming will wrap up group play in THE TIPOFF against Celtics Crossover Gaming on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET.