Magic fire Jamahl Mosley after 5 seasons as coach, 3 first-round playoff appearances, AP source says
Jamahl Mosley was fired as coach of the Orlando Magic on Monday, paying the widely expected price after the team blew a 3-1 series lead and got eliminated by the Detroit Pistons in Round 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity pending the team announcement. It was Orlando’s third consecutive first-round playoff exit, and easily the most disappointing.
Not only did the eighth-seeded Magic lose all three chances to upset the top-seeded Pistons, but one of those games saw Orlando have a 24-point second-half lead at home and still lose. Orlando missed 23 consecutive shots in that Game 6 loss on Friday, getting booed by fans when it was over. That loss probably was the one that sealed Mosley’s fate, even though the loss in Game 7 at Detroit on Sunday was the one that ended the season.
Mosley is the third-winningest coach in Magic history, his 189 wins behind only Brian Hill (267) and Stan Van Gundy (259). He inherited a team that was in the early stages of a rebuild, with Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs entering the league as rookies in his first season and then the Magic winning the lottery to draft Paolo Banchero No. 1 overall before Mosley’s second season.
Orlando won 22 games in Mosley’s first season, improved to 34-48 in Year 2 and has been . 500 or better in all three seasons since — 47-35 in 2023-24, 41-41 last season and 45-37 this season. That makes the Magic one of 10 teams — Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma City are the others — to have not finished below .
500 in any of the last three seasons. It wasn’t enough. And with much of the team’s core — Banchero, Wagner, Suggs, Desmond Bane and more — under contract for the foreseeable future, the Magic clearly felt the best way to shake things up was to bring in a new coach.
Continue to the original source for the full article.