Tristan da Silva Was Perfect When Magic Needed Him Most

The Orlando Magic are a team that shakes things up when it comes to lineups often.

It isn't necessarily by prefence, but with players shuttling in and out of the lineup due to injury, it's inevitable. That has been the case for second-year pro Tristan da Silva, who came off the bench in the team's latest win against the Dallas Mavericks despite starting the previous six.

His response? He scored 19 points on a perfect 7 of 7 from the field, which included four 3-pointers.

“Oh, I mean he didn’t miss a shot. I think that’s a pretty daggone [sic] good lift, and I think I’ve got to give a shout out to our bench," Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley said of da Silva.

Tristan da Silva Lifts Bench in Magic Win

Orlando Magic forward Tristan da Silva against the Phoenix Suns. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The bench scored 45 points in the win against the Mavs and the team needed every single one to come out on top. Mosley gave the bench his flowers after the win.

"You know, that’s another night that Goga (Bitadze) comes in, plays the right way, does the right thing, just continues to have a presence on the rim, setting great screens, defending the right way. And then Noah (Penda) did an unbelievable job in there, blocking shots, physicality, all those things are big keys to us winning games and it’s by committee as always," Mosley said postgame.

The Magic have had to rally in games lately, which isn't necessarily their choice, but they will take a win no matter how ugly it looks because it counts the same at the end of the day.

“We’ll be back tomorrow and then taking steps in the right direction. Learning from it. How to be more consistent. How to carry that momentum, especially in [those] stretches where we do play really, really well together and really good basketball," da Silva said postgame.

"I feel like those are the ones that we really [have] to hone in and get more of. But you know, at the end of the day, basketball is a game of runs, and we’ve got to be aware of that and not panic, and then, yeah, just try to limit opponents runs as much as possible.”

The Magic have some work to do in order to move up in the standings, but wins like this will move them much closer towards the playoffs, so they need to continue executing like this down the stretch.