Orlando Fans Winning Over Desmond Bane

Desmond Bane is red hot at Home in NBA Playoffs

After hitting just 3/15 3P in his first two road playoff games, Bane didn't blink.

Game 3 Bane splashed 7 3PM; Game 4 Bane knocked down 5 3PM more.

Desmond Bane became the first player in Magic history to have back-to-back playoff games with 20+ PTS & 5+ 3PM.

"Water always find its level", he repeats through the ups and downs of shooting volatility.

The Hot Hand Theory data shows that even an average shooting night is rare, and anything at or better than that efficiency should be ridden out until shots stop falling.

Bane shoots better at home, but his home/road splits often aren't as drastic as this playoff series would imply.

After Game 4, I asked Desmond Bane what was working differently for him in Game 3 & 4 at home where he saw his 3pt shot fall better than the first two games of this series on the road:

Just being aggressive.

I thought in those first two games, I got great looks, great opportunities, and it just didn’t fall.

Water always finds its level.

I talked to my homeboy, Billie Webster; he came up to Detroit, and that is something we always pride ourselves on — the work has been put in, you got to trust it.

When you go out there, play free, and the rest is history.Desmond Bane

Most players feed off the home crowd, and on top of their general 3pt shooting variance, it generally seems like outside shooters see the most variance in home/road splits compared to others, and those things are probably related.

Desmond Bane is more than the average shooter; he's a 3pt sniper, a walking bucket scorer, a floor-bending avatar who moves the earth off handoff drives to the rim and shoots fire from beyond the arc, creating gravity for himself and teammates on and off the ball. Orlando has been able to count on him night-to-night not because of his 3-ball, that can be magnificent, but because of his ability to attack the rack off handoffs and score, draw fouls, hit dumpoff dunkers or kickout 3pt shooters consistently for an offense that was desperate for production while juggling injuries all season.

25 of his 42 20-point games came at home.
7 of his 12 30-point games were at home.

When Bane feeds off the momentum of splashing exciting three pointers and tough pull-up jumpers in front of this home crowd, Des tends to pop off for his best outings.

Even with Game 5 on the road, and with Franz Wagner's status up in the air, hopefully Orlando keeps feeding its hot hand before the water starts flowing in the other direction.