Harvey, Marble step up, but Magic Blue fall short vs. Pacers

By foxsports
Published

The Orlando Magic Blue squad lost to the Indiana Pacers 91-85 Thursday to fall to 1-3 in summer league play.

Tyler Harvey scored a team-high 24 point, shooting 8 of 13 from the field -- including 4 of 7 on 3-pointers -- and 4 of 5 on free throws. Harvey, drafted 51st overall by the Magic last month, believes the summer league will ease his transition into his first NBA season.

"Playing against the best every night, that's what you want," Harvey said. "You want to play against the best, so it's been a great experience. I've learned a lot of information, and overall it's been a great transition."

Devyn Marble added 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting. He was the only player from Orlando's 2014-15 roster to play in Thursday's game.

The Magic rested Elfrid Payton and fifth overall pick Mario Hezonja for the second consecutive game, as well as Aaron Gordon, who leads the Orlando Summer League with 21.7 points per game.

They reflected on their time on the court as Orlando prepares for its final day of summer league action Friday.

"My first [goal] was to get great chemistry with my teammates," Hezonja said. "So I'm really happy for that. Summer league is the summer league. Just to play and get along with Elfrid and Aaron in the games and just to work on every detail in basketball to get better, of course."

"Individually, I'm very happy of the work that has shown," Gordon said. "But we lost too many games here, and that's really what it comes down to. I'm just looking to continue to improve, get better and come back ready for training camp."

"It's good," Payton said of seeing Gordon's and Hezonja's performances. "It's building. I think those guys could both be good. Mario's going to be fun to have in transition with us, and he can help us greatly."

Payton acknowledged his and Gordon's quick admiration for Hezonja, who joined the team last week.

"I don't know, sometimes you meet people and just click," Payton said. "We have a good group this year."

Magic coach Scott Skiles also met with the media after Thursday's loss. The coach remained optimistic of his new team's prospects, despite its summer league record.

"I wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't see the potential," Skiles said. "We don't want to win 25 games, we want to have a winning record, that's our goal. I know that's a huge jump but Milwaukee made a big jump, my other teams made a big jump so we have to do certain things to get there. We can't just say we're going to do it, we have to take action. But I have every reason to believe we will."