Week six for the Orlando Magic was the dream setup. Following four days of rest after their five-game west coast road trip, the Magic had home games against Indiana and Atlanta. Two teams that have been anything but dominant in the early part of the season. They were two checkmarks in the win column as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, Indiana and Atlanta didn’t cooperate.

Indiana beat the Magic by dominating the second half, outscoring Orlando 61-47 in the final two quarters. Had the Magic just returned from the west coast with no time to rest, this result might have been justified. Instead, it’s just a huge flop of a homecoming for a team that was recently sitting at the top of the power rankings for various sports news outlets.

The Atlanta game was never really that close. The Magic had a few chances after falling behind by 10 in the first quarter, but the Hawks always kept a big enough lead to keep the Magic out of it. In this game, we saw the “Hack-a-Dwight” defense that put D. Howard on the line 14 times. While he has been better this season from the stripe, he missed 8 free throws on the night and wasn’t able to get much going on offense.

Overall, the Magic are now 16-6 with a 4 1/2 game lead on Washington in the Southeast division. The team continues its road-heavy schedule with four of the next five away from Orlando, including games against Milwaukee, Charlotte, Dallas and Houston. The next month will be a huge test to see just how good the Magic are going to be this season.

Note: The official design for the new events center were released yesterday. To view the designs, visit the Orlando Sentinel photo gallery.

Week-by-week record:

• Week 1: 3-1
• Week 2: 3-1
• Week 3: 4-0
• Week 4: 3-1
• Week 5: 3-1
• Week 6: 0-2

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