The Orlando Magic got in the win column of the 2026 NBA Summer League with a 93-88 victory over the Miami Heat on Saturday. After the game, coach D.J. Bakker talked about the performance of his team and reiterated points he made in the days of preparation leading up to Summer League that are now being put into practice.

Below, you can read some of his comments:

"Just really encouraging guys to be two-way players. You know, like it's hard to just score your way into the NBA and score your way into playing time and knowing that, you know, there's two sides on each side for the basketball and, you know, having that individual pride.

You know, I think I talked earlier on about he wants the matchups. With him, he's obviously very versatile being able to switch and guard guards, switch on the bigs as we saw. But the thing I was proud is about they had 36 points in the second half.

I think two players combined for 34 alone in the first half and just keeping them out of transition, taking care of the ball, and then at the end of the day, if your man has the ball, having that individual pride of sitting down, being square, and then the last part of it when those guys are off the ball, especially Noah, is his positioning off the ball so he can be in proper shrinks and he's in help defense.

So, part of it is great one-on-one defense and then the other part of it is like when you're off ball, you know, you got a great, you know, stay engaged and stay alert even when your man doesn't have the ball."

"The energy across the board was really good and you even saw it offensively with offensive rebounds. So, I say the offensive rebounds because typically when you're crashing the glass, there's energy and then you heard the bench.

The bench started getting louder and then the players started talking more. It's one thing leads to another, you know, and so it's maintaining that and it's sustaining that for a longer period of time. But I thought we came out with the right mindset, the right approach."

"J said something at halftime. The guys weren't happy with how they played in the first half and I thought, you know, the players responded to that and then when he speaks up and they hear his voice go out and execute, that's really encouraging from a leadership standpoint."

"The coachability and the wanting to get better from game to game is really impressive. Last game you saw it, he was guarding in the pick and roll. He'd fire back and he had three fouls where he just swiped down and we're like, no, protect the rim.

You have too much size to get those type of fouls. I don't think he had one swipe down today and if he did, he didn't get a foul on it, right? So I didn't notice it but very coachable, wants to watch film. I think I've mentioned a good eye contact but he's always, and if you tell him something, he gives you a thumbs up and he tries to do it better.

So if a player has that type of makeup, that type of coach ability and then, you know, the physicality you're seeing it, the ability to switch. We saw, we went to a one through five switching. That defensive versatility, you know, puts you in a really good spot. So, proud of the progress he's making and excited to keep going with him."

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