Magic fire coach Jamahl Mosley after first-round playoff defeat: Sources

Atlantic76ersCelticsKnicksNetsRaptorsCentralBucksBullsCavaliersPacersPistonsSoutheastHawksHeatHornetsMagicWizardsSouthwestGrizzliesMavericksPelicansRocketsSpursNorthwestJazzNuggetsThunderTimberwolvesTrail BlazersPacificClippersKingsLakersSunsWarriorsScores & ScheduleStandingsThe Bounce NewsletterNBA DraftPodcastsFantasyNBA OddsNBA PicksLatest Mock DraftWhat Makes Up Championship DNA?Player Poll: Who is the MVP?Player Poll: Who Will Win Title?NBA Season Jamahl Mosley led Orlando to three consecutive playoff appearances during his five seasons as head coach. Ethan Miller / Getty Images Share articleThe Orlando Magic entered the 2025-26 season as a clear favorite to finish near the top of the Eastern Conference standings. A comprehensive preseason survey of NBA general managers even ranked the Magic as a top-four team in the East. Yet the Magic barely qualified for the playoffs and, once they reached the first round, let a 3-1 series lead over the top-seeded Detroit Pistons slip away. Jamahl Mosley paid a heavy price for that disappointing, perplexing season. After his team was eliminated from the playoffs with a 116-94 Game 7 loss to the Pistons, Magic officials fired Mosley on Monday morning, ending his head-coaching tenure after five seasons, a league source confirmed to The Athletic. Mosley’s time with the Magic featured many achievements, including three consecutive playoff appearances and the molding of a young roster into one of the league’s best defenses. But perhaps none of those high points will be remembered as much as the Magic’s heartbreaking Game 6 loss Friday to the Pistons. Orlando held a 3-2 series advantage entering that home game, then took a 24-point lead early in the third quarter. But the Magic’s erratic half-court offense suddenly wilted against the Pistons’ defensive pressure, scoring only 19 points in the second half for the lowest point total in any playoff half in NBA history. The Magic missed 23 consecutive shots from the field. They made only one field goal in the fourth quarter. And they ultimately lost 93-79 in one of the most stunning collapses in recent league history. The Magic ended their injury-marred regular season eighth in the East standings, but concerns with the team’s offensive struggles left players frustrated and those frustrations sometimes seeped into their customary effort on defense. League sources speculated since late October that Taylor Jenkins, former coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, would be the preferred candidate to replace Mosley if the Magic coaching job opened, but the Milwaukee Bucks hired Jenkins in late April. In recent days, league sources have speculated that former University of Florida, Oklahoma City Thunder and Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan could emerge as a candidate for the Magic. Donovan famously accepted the Magic’s coaching job during the 2007 offseason, after he won back-to-back NCAA titles at Florida, then got cold feet and decided to return to Florida. President of basketball operations Jeff Weltman does not appear to be in jeopardy of losing his job. Two league sources said Weltman signed a contract extension during the first half of the season, around the time the Magic reached the NBA Cup semifinals. It was Weltman who made an expensive trade for Desmond Bane last June, a trade team officials hoped would rectify the team’s long-range shooting woes and help the squad contend for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The Magic’s season was marred by a string of head-scratching performances that left league observers wondering if Weltman might make an in-season coaching change. That included a stretch between Dec. 3 and Jan. 26 in which Orlando failed to win two games in a row. One embarrassing performance occurred in late March — a 139-87 loss in Toronto that was the most lopsided regular-season defeat in Magic history. The Raptors went on a 31-0 run during that Magic loss, the NBA’s longest uninterrupted scoring run since the league started tracking play-by-play data in the mid-1990s. In retrospect, the loss foreshadowed the Magic’s atrocious second half against the Pistons in Game 6. The Magic entered their regular-season finale seventh in the East standings, and a victory that afternoon in Boston would have clinched home-court advantage in the No. 7 vs. No. 8 East Play-In game. The Boston Celtics rested all of their key players and employed an eight-man rotation, yet the Magic still lost 113-108. Bane, who had appeared in all 81 of Orlando’s preceding games, was subbed out with 5:43 remaining in the first quarter with the Magic ahead 13-10 and wasn’t reinserted into the game until 11:17 remained in the fourth quarter with the Magic trailing 94-83. The loss forced the Magic to play their opening Play-In game in Philadelphia, which they lost to the 76ers 109-97, a performance that once again illustrated the team’s offensive shortcomings. Weltman hired Mosley before the 2021-22 season, entrusting him to lead a fresh teardown rebuild. That rebuild did not last long, thanks to lottery luck, savvy drafting and the culture that Mosley helped develop. The franchise drafted Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner in the top eight in 2021 and Paolo Banchero first in 2022, and Mosley crafted a defense-first identity with a smart scheme. The 2023-24 season was the high point of Mosley’s tenure. Orlando compiled a 47-35 record as Mosley finished second in the NBA Coach of the Year voting. In March 2024, the Magic and Mosley agreed on a contract extension that ran through the 2027-28 season. The Magic then lost a closely contested first-round playoff series to the Cleveland Cavaliers that went seven games and hinted at a team on the rise. The Magic have not built on that success, though, largely because of injuries, an underperforming offense and, lately, an increasingly porous defense. During the 2024-25 regular season, the nucleus of Banchero, Wagner and Suggs played only six games together. The team finished 41-41, won a Play-In game and lost to the Celtics in five games in the first round. Injuries were just as frustrating this season. The preferred starting five of Suggs, Bane, Wagner, Banchero and Wendell Carter Jr. played only 182 minutes together during the regular season. But in those minutes, Orlando outscored its opponents by 11.6 points per 100 possessions — an impressive figure that Mosley’s supporters cited as proof the team would have met expectations had key players been healthy all season. A sustained stretch of good health never arrived — not in the regular season, nor during the playoffs. Suggs opened the regular season under a minutes restriction following knee cartilage surgery last spring, and subsequent injuries or illnesses forced him to miss 25 games. Banchero missed 10 consecutive games because of a groin strain and struggled to shake off the rust after he returned. Wagner missed 16 straight games because of a high-ankle sprain and aggravated the injury twice. Wagner, who is Orlando’s best two-way player, missed 48 regular-season games and suffered a right calf strain during the third quarter of Game 4 against the Pistons that kept him out the rest of the series. If Wagner had not suffered his calf injury, there’s a chance the Magic would have won the closely contested fifth game of the series or closed out the series at home in Game 6. Banchero, a former All-Star whose maximum-salary contract extension will begin next season, looms as another overarching concern. There have been longstanding concerns within Banchero’s orbit that, under Mosley, the team’s half-court offense has stalled due to ineffective game plans that left the Magic bereft of ball movement and player movement. Those concerns spilled out into the open in March 2025 after the Magic lost at home to a tanking Raptors team. Banchero’s mom, former WNBA player Rhonda Banchero, tweeted: “If you don’t have a plan, they don’t know what to execute. No anticipation, spotty energy, no synergy. Just randomness all over.” In another tweet, she added: “If roles are undefined, everyone thinks they can play the lead character.” Paolo Banchero distanced himself from those comments, telling The Athletic 13 months ago, “She coached and played pro, and so she’s going to call things how she sees (them). She has her own views and opinions.” After a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks before this season’s All-Star break, The Athletic asked Banchero whether the Magic were playing to their potential on offense. He answered: “I think our record answers that question, honestly. I’m not going to sit here and harp on the problems with our offense or what I think is wrong with our offense. But I don’t think anyone would say that it’s where it should be or could be.” In early March, Banchero said that the Magic do not adjust after opponents make halftime adjustments. The Magic’s offense improved after the team made a conscious effort to play at a faster pace following Bane’s arrival. After ending the 2024-25 season ranked 27th in offensive efficiency, they improved to 18th this season. Of course, that still fell below league average. Where the blame for Orlando’s offensive woes should be placed remains an open question. The Magic ended the season ranked 11th league-wide in wide-open 3-point attempts per game but 28th in accuracy, converting only 36.5 percent of those attempts. They also struggled to make what the NBA defines as open 3s, ranking 28th in accuracy at 31.7 percent. Orlando’s 119-105 home loss to the Cavaliers on Jan. 24 provided an example. The Magic generated 12 corner 3-point attempts in that game — one of the most coveted shots in basketball — but missed all 12. A team’s shot diet may rest on a coach, but what about the misses on efficient shots? The Magic’s defense also disappointed. Under Mosley, Orlando regularly ranked among the league’s best defensive teams, allowing the league’s third-fewest points per 100 possessions in 2023-24 and the second-fewest last season. Yet the team fell to 13th this season. Again, however, injuries can be attributed to the decline. Suggs and Wagner, the team’s top two defenders, missed 73 total games. Their absences would be difficult for any team (or coach) to compensate for. Anthony Black, an up-and-coming defender, missed 18 games. Any new coach will be tasked with revitalizing Orlando’s defense and further improving the offense. In 2024-25, Orlando’s offense ranked last in the league in 3-pointers made and 3-point shooting percentage by wide margins. This season, the Magic ranked 27th in 3-point percentage. Those struggles stemmed in part from the team’s personnel, with Banchero, Wagner and Black still early in their careers, and big men Jonathan Isaac, Carter and Goga Bitadze unable to stretch the floor. Orlando acquired Bane from the Memphis Grizzlies last summer in a costly deal that sent away Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, four first-round picks and a 2029 pick swap (top two protected). At the time of the trade, Magic officials calculated that adding Bane to a roster with fewer injuries would result in a sustained leap in the standings and help the team advance beyond the first round. Those expectations seemed reasonable at the time. They proved too optimistic. And on Monday, Mosley paid the price for it. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms