"Ahead of the final regular season game, and a critical one at that, as in some ways the Magic control their destiny, and other ways it is being left up to chance and the hope that other dominoes will fall their way. It's crazy, you know, last time I was on this show for a full episode was 10 days ago, based on what YouTube's telling me, after a nasty loss to the Atlanta Hawks at home, in which the Magic were blown out. And things really, really looked dire for this team.

They just continued to skid. That was only their third win over the last like 11 or 12 games at that point, after the seven game win streak that we saw from early to mid-March. And it looked like, I mean, it looked like a team, that worst case scenario for me, was headed towards not having another home game at all after the final one against the Minnesota Timberwolves on April 8th.

But this team has turned it around since then, winners of five straight after that loss to Atlanta. The Magic go to Dallas, overcome Cooper Flagg's 51 points, a win at New Orleans, and then a couple of wins at home against the Pistons and the Timberwolves before beating the Chicago Bulls on Friday night. And now they go to Boston to face a Boston team that is going to be resting most of its key roster pieces, if not all of them.

A chance to go into Boston and a chance to win out and potentially enter the sixth seed and avoid the play-in, which would be huge for this team.

This is something that myself and I'm sure most of the Magic faithful were not really even seeing as a possibility after that loss to the Hawks. This was a team that looked dead in the water. I remember that postgame presser was very, very contentious."

"Now, my colleague Philip Rossman-Reich of Orlando Magic Daily did a wonderful job breaking down what the Magic's postseason picture looks like currently and what it could look like. So all credit goes to him on this. I am referencing his story and his breakdown on this, because he did such a tremendous job in putting this together.

And I really think that, you know, that, yeah, I mean, he's been around this team for so long, and he has such an understanding of how things are set up in this moment, that I wanted to give him that credit and also reference his piece. So here's where things are looking. Philip wrote that 'with a win on Sunday, the Magic are guaranteed to finish no worse than seventh in the Eastern Conference, hosting the 7-8 play-in game on Tuesday at the Kia Center.'

So, that's significant, because that means the Magic will have a home court advantage, as good a home court advantage as you can get being a play-in team, to try and propel themselves into a playoff spot. Now, it's one of those things where currently the Magic are seventh with a 45 and 36 record. Just ahead of them are the Toronto Raptors with an identical record.

And so, Philip continues to write, he said, with a win and a Toronto Raptors loss to the Brooklyn Nets, the Orlando Magic would climb out of the play-in and finish sixth, setting up a first-round playoff series with the New York Knicks. That's crucial because that means now Toronto understands its situation. It understands that losing means falling into the play-in.

And so, you got to know that the Raptors are going to be fighting to remain in the playoff picture and set up their date with the New York Knicks instead of ending up in a play-in picture here. And the Nets, for all intents and purposes, like the season is over. Philip continues to write, he said, 'the Nets, for their part, have already clinched the top odds in the NBA draft lottery and cannot fall out of the bottom three in the league with a win.'

So, their season's done. It's not to say that they won't play hard, but chances are the Raptors are going to win this game. I mean, upsets can happen, but they understand what's on the line.

So, the most likely scenario is Orlando hosting the 7-8 play-in game against what's looking like will be the Sixers on Tuesday. But there is a scenario that could be even worse for the Magic, which they would want to avoid."

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