Paolo Banchero Despondent After Magic Blow 3-1 Lead to Pistons

The Orlando Magic had the Detroit Pistons on the ropes.The Pistons are the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference for these NBA playoffs, while the Magic needed the Play-In Tournament to sneak in the back door as the No. 8 seed. Over in the Western Conference, the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder swept the eighth-seeded Phoenix Suns, and the Pistons were expected to enjoy a similarly easy opening series.Instead, the Magic took a 3-1 series lead and were the darlings of the first round. NBC's broadcast of Game 4 relayed that Orlando became the sixth 8-seed to hold a 3-1 lead over a 1-seed, with four of the previous five 8-seeds winning the series and advancing. But the issue was that, while winning, the Magic weren't playing particularly well. Orlando shot 32.6% from the field en route to winning Game 4, 94-88, which Keerthika Uthayakumar confirmed was the fifth-worst playoff field goal percentage by any team in the three-point era. To make matters more worrisome, they lost Franz Wagner, who had been shutting Cade Cunningham down defensively, for the rest of the series due to a calf strain suffered in Game 4.Detroit stopped letting Orlando get away with poor form