ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Add Moritz Wagner to Orlando’s rapidly expanding injury list.
The Magic’s backup center, and the older brother of injured forward Franz Wagner, went down with a potentially serious left knee injury with 2:33 left in the first quarter of Saturday night’s game against the Miami Heat.
The Magic came back to win 121–114, but the elation of their comeback was tempered by the prospect of a long absence of a player they consider to be a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.
“We’re all praying for him. This one was for Mo,” said center Goga Bitadze. “It’s really bad to see one of our brothers go down. Like we’ve been saying, ‘Next man up,’ But this guy deserved better than this.”
Magic coach Jamahl Mosely opened his postgame comments with an emotional announcement that he could not answer questions about the 6-foot-11 Wagner. The team said Wagner will undergo further evaluation on Sunday.
Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, Orlando’s top two scorers, are out long-term with torn obliques. Banchero missed his 25th game Saturday night and Franz Wagner missed his fifth game. The Magic also played Saturday without guard Jalen Suggs, who was a late scratch after injuring his ankle in a game against Oklahoma City on Thursday night.
Mo Wagner’s knee buckled on a drive to the basket. He went down and was helped off the floor and brought straight to the locker room.
He averaged 13.3 points and 5.1 rebounds whole playing 19.4 minutes per game. He has played in all 29 Magic games so far this season and missed only two games last season.
“I think he was going to be the Sixth Man of the Year. Hopefully he can come back and pick that up,” said Cole Anthony, who led Orlando’s big comeback Saturday night.
"I call him a one-man army,” Bitadze said. “We were all playing for Mo. You look at the crazy numbers he’s had this season. Sixth man, definitely.”
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Orlando Magic center Moritz Wagner (21) evades New York Knicks guard Pacome Dadiet, left, during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Youngblood)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hard-liners within Iran's security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump he's willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.
Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.
The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”
Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran's Punak neighborhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.
Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns on the street.
In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, some 725 kilometers (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Flaming debris and dumpsters could be seen in the street, blocking the road. Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, making the protests there carry heavy significance for the country's theocracy.
Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a page from demonstrators, having their correspondents appear on streets in several cities to show calm areas with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.
Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”
Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
