ORLANDO, Fla. _ Orlando Magic backup center Marreese Speights is a budding entrepreneur. Taking advantage of his clever nickname, "Mo Buckets," Speights has started a website in which he sells T-shirts and baseball caps. On Thursday morning, he even gave a Magic staff member a spare blue Mo Buckets cap as a gift.
If Speights keeps playing like he did Thursday night, increased demand will force him to manufacture more swag.
Speights lifted the Magic to their first win in three weeks, a 102-89 victory over the Detroit Pistons at Amway Center.
In 15 minutes of playing time off the bench, Speights scored 16 points, collected five rebounds and even blocked a shot by Andre Drummond.
With their win, the Magic snapped a nine-game losing streak.
With Orlando leading 77-73 entering the fourth quarter, Speights sank a 3-pointer. About a minute later, Speights passed the ball to D.J. Augustin on the perimeter, and Augustin drained a 3-pointer. After a Detroit miss, Elfrid Payton threw the ball to Arron Afflalo, and Afflalo made a 3-pointer of his own, forcing Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy to call a timeout.
The Magic (12-24) bench played perhaps its best game in weeks, largely because Aaron Gordon returned from a five-game absence due to a calf strain and bone bruise, and Evan Fournier played his second straight game following a right ankle sprain.
Gordon and Fournier, the team's leading scorers entering Thursday, hadn't played in the same game since Fournier injured his ankle on Dec. 6.
Gordon scored 14 points and collected seven rebounds while Fournier added 17 points and dished out five assists.
Payton nearly recorded a triple-double, finishing with 19 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
Their presence in the starting lineup solidified the Magic's bench.
The Magic took a 46-36 lead midway through the second quarter on a 3-pointer by Gordon.
But the Pistons scored the game's next 14 points _ and did it against the Magic's starting lineup of Payton, Jonathon Simmons, Fournier, Gordon and Bismack Biyombo.
The Magic missed all six of their shot attempts and turned the ball over twice over that stretch. The Pistons benefited from not having to inbound the ball and made seven of their eight shot attempts, with former Magic point guard Ish Smith leading the way with eight of Detroit's 14 points.
Drummond scored Detroit's 13th and 14th points of the run when he intercepted an errant pass by Gordon, dribbled coast-to-coast and punctuated his one-man fast break with a dunk.
His basket put the Pistons ahead 50-46.
Late in the first half, the Magic dribbled too much and forced an increasing number of shots. Frank Vogel and his assistant coaches have consistently preached the value of playing with the pass, but their players don't always comply. The Magic aren't doing as good a job finding the open man and passing up OK shots for good shots as they did early in the season.
It looked like Detroit (19-15) might run away with the game.
Those same deficiencies plagued the Magic midway through the third quarter as the Pistons scored 12 consecutive points to take a 67-62 lead.
Speights is receiving regular minutes now because Nikola Vucevic, the team's first-string center, fractured a bone in his left hand on Dec. 23. As a result, Biyombo moved into the starting lineup and Speights was elevated on the depth chart, too.
The regular minutes have helped Speights emerge from a frustrating shooting slump and regain his rhythm.
From Dec. 3 through Dec. 22, he made only four of his 33 shot attempts and just two of his 18 attempts from 3-point range.
On Thursday, however, he went 5 of 13 from the field.
With 1:22 to play, and Orlando leading 102-85, Speights watched the action from the sideline. He stood with a towel over his head and its ends wedged into the neckline of his warm-up shirt.
He raised his hands.
He and the Magic finally had reason to celebrate.
