ORLANDO, Fla. — After a couple days off since their NBA regular-season finale, the Orlando Magic went back to practice Wednesday, with their attention turned to the Cleveland Cavaliers and the first round of the NBA playoffs starting Saturday.

The Magic, who enter the playoffs as the fifth-seeded team in the Eastern Conference, have heard all the outside noise since the beginning of the season, underestimating their ability to win. Now that they are headed to the postseason, the players are focused on staying true to what got the team this far and believing in those traits.

Orlando will start its first playoff series in four years on the road in Cleveland at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The Magic have mostly no postseason experience, with only veterans Joe Ingles, Gary Harris, Markelle Fultz and Jonathan Isaac having been there at all previously — and Fultz and Isaac had short stays. But the players say they don't think the moment will be too big for them.

"I don't think the moment's too big, you know, not only for me, for anybody," Orlando All-Star forward Paolo Banchero said. "We’ve talked about it since before the season. ...You don't talk about something that you're scared of doing, you know? Everybody is just excited and ready to go."

Coach Jamahl Mosley said the players have been preparing themselves all season.

"Talking to a bunch of them this summer, that was the thought process after what we did at the end of last year," Mosley said. "They could see it in front of them. And now their ability to recognize that now, having meaningful games throughout the year, they understood exactly what they have to do in these moments."

Banchero even said a year ago it was playoffs or bust. Now they're getting ready for their first series.

It's been a steady, uphill climb for the Magic — not only getting to 47 wins this season, but over the past three under Jamahl Mosley. In the coach's first season in 2021-22, Orlando went 22-60. The team won 12 more games last season, finishing 34-48. And this season, Orlando won 13 more games, ending the regular season with a 47-35 record.

The playoffs, though, have been a hurdle that have thrown off some young Magic teams the first time they experienced it. The 1993-94 team led by Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway got swept in three games by the Indiana Pacers in the first round, when teams played five-game series in early rounds instead of the best-of-seven series now. The Dwight Howard-led team in 2006-07 lost four first-round games in a row to the Detroit Pistons. Both teams made significant jumps the following postseason.

Recognizing their lack of postseason experience, the Magic's players are reminding themselves to stick with the belief they have in themselves and play the way they've done all year long. But at the same time, they recognize the newness of the playoffs.

"We had that mentality all year," forward Franz Wagner said. "Coming into the season, nobody expected us to have this kind of season. We got to have that same approach, same belief, and also, we’ve got the group to do it. We talked about, you know, being ourselves, and you know, we have to do everything special. But obviously, it's (postseason) a different approach that's a very, different, different detailing of things. And plus, you get to look at the Cavs closer than you can in the regular season."

The teams split their regular-season meetings. Orlando lost in Cleveland 121-111 on Dec. 6 and at home 126-99 on Jan. 22. But they won at home on Dec. 11 by 104-94 and in Cleveland on Feb. 22 116-109. In all those games, key players were out with injuries for at least one team.

"It (the playoffs) is its own season. It's a different beast," Mosley said. "And guys will understand that a little bit more once we get in there, but also know that we have to still do the things that got us to this point."

The path starts Saturday in Cleveland. The teams will play two games there before returning to the Kia Center for Games 3 and 4 on April 25 and April 27. If necessary, Game 5 will be back in Cleveland and Game 6 would be back at home.