The Orlando Magic have advanced to the 2025 NBA playoffs with a convincing play-in win over the Atlanta Hawks. But it will be a short stay if Orlando can’t overcome some significant historical roadblocks.
The Orlando Magic used a huge first half and a strong finish to beat the Atlanta Hawks 120-95 in Tuesday night’s Eastern Conference play-in and advance to the NBA playoffs.
The team’s prize for a win in the first play-in game of 2025 is a date with the defending champion Boston Celtics.
Any team that came out of the play-in would have a tough time with the 61-win Celtics. But the Magic particularly will need to overcome their own playoff demons and other trends to pull off the upset. Here are three things working strongly against the Magic in the opening round.
1.) Orlando’s Playoff History
It’s been so long since the Magic have won a playoff series, that their leading scorer from that team is being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Dwight Howard was announced as a Hall of Famer inductee this year, and he led the Magic to the conference finals in the 2009-10 season.
Since then, the Magic have dropped five straight opening round series. Orlando came close to exorcising those demons last year, taking the Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games. Paolo Banchero had 38 points in Game 7, but Donovan Mitchell was a bit better with 39, and the Cavaliers advanced with a 106-94 win.
It’s not just recently that the Magic have struggled as underdogs in the playoffs, either. Most teams don’t have a good record as the lower seed, but Orlando’s is especially jarring. The Magic are 0-9 all time as the lower seed in opening round playoff series.
So, Orlando hasn’t won a playoff series since 2010 and hasn’t ever won an opening round series as the lower seed.
2.) The 3-Point Shooting Disparity Between the Magic and Celtics is Historic
You might say the first part was mostly about different teams. And history doesn’t have much bearing on the current teams. Perhaps this version of the Magic has an advantage over this version of the Celtics.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to make a case there beyond the Magic’s 2-1 record against the Celtics this season. Orlando has to overcome a massive math problem with a much larger sample size than three head-to-head games. Namely, the Celtics hit the most 3s in a single season in NBA history in 2024-25, and the Magic had the worst 3-point shooting percentage for any NBA team since 2015-16. The last team to finish last in the NBA in 3-point percentage in the regular season and win a playoff series that season was the 1998-99 Philadelphia 76ers (who beat the Magic). Those 76ers had Allen Iverson. The Magic don’t.
The Celtics made 6.6 more 3s per game than the Magic did. There were only two series in NBA history where the disparity was greater; the 2018 Houston Rockets averaged 7.3 more 3-point makes per game than the Minnesota Timberwolves and the 2006 Phoenix Suns averaged 6.7 more 3s than the Los Angeles Clippers. In both instances, the team making more 3s won the series.
Orlando signed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the offseason to address the team’s 3-point shooting woes, but his 3-point shooting cratered, down from 40.6% last season to 34.2% this season.
Jalen Suggs was the only Orlando player to make more than two 3-pointers per game this season. He’s injured. The Celtics have five players averaging more than two 3-point makes per game, and three more averaging at least 1.7. It’s going to be hard for the Magic to win a series if both teams shoot as expected from behind the arc.
3.) A 20-Win Regular-Season Gap Between Two Teams is Nearly Impossible to Overcome in the NBA Playoffs
There are a lot of stats that favor the Celtics. While some are matchup based, a lot come down to the simple fact that Boston is a much better team. Yes, the slate is wiped clean now and the past 82 games are only as relevant as the seeds they determined. But…
Boston won 20 more games than Orlando and had a point differential 9.2 points better. The Celtics cruised through most of the season assured a top-2 seed while the Magic had to scrap and claw to stay in the top half of the play-in.
Only two teams in NBA history have won a series with a greater win percentage disparity. The “We Believe” 2007 Golden State Warriors were 42-40 and beat the 67-15 Dallas Mavericks and the 1994 Denver Nuggets were 42-40 and beat the 63-19 Seattle Supersonics.
That’s not to say the Magic can’t make things tough on the Celtics. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner are rising stars and Orlando has the defense to bother Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
But to win the series, the Magic would have to overcome a whole lot of history that points the way of the Celtics.
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