An eerily familiar sequence surfaced in the third quarter at Verizon Center on Saturday night. For 24 minutes, the Washington Wizards stitched together the sort of all-around performance they now expect against teams like the middling Orlando Magic. But repeated lapses plagued the Wizards in the third quarter, an all-too familiar buzzkill for a franchise seeking to halt such failures.

The formula they utilized to assert their superiority in the game’s first half abruptly disappeared. Ball movement ceased and the Magic suddenly morphed into the more physical team. With the breakdown came an array of quick, off-target midrange jump shots to sabotage possessions and fuel a 2-of-12 start from the floor. One by one, the Magic gathered the misses and sliced off some of the cushion at the other end. When Evan Fournier converted a three-point play with 3 minutes 10 seconds left in the quarter, the hosts’ lead, 10 points at halftime, had dwindled to one.

Then Otto Porter Jr. awoke from his slumber. After attempting one shot through the game’s first 33 minutes, he connected with a jumper and then another. He ignited a 9-3 run to snap his team out of the flashback and continued his shot-making in the fourth period. Porter tallied nine more points in the final quarter to finish with 13 and help lift the Wizards past the pesky Magic, 98-93, before an announced crowd of 19,110.

“Otto, in the second half, he just finally started looking at the basket and being a little bit more aggressive,” Coach Randy Wittman said. “I didn’t even know he was out there in the first half.”

A year removed from an ugly 2-7 start, the Wizards are 7-2 and 4-0 at home for the first time since the 1974-75 season. It was their second win over the Magic in 16 days and sixth straight dating from last season.

Orlando’s Victor Oladipo (DeMatha), who made his season debut Friday against Milwaukee, makes his first start of the season Saturday and scores 18 points in losing effort. (Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency)

More good news could be imminent. Shooting guard Bradley Beal, out since Oct. 10 with a fractured left wrist, is expected to return to practice this week and is “hoping” to make his regular season debut this coming Friday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Without Beal for the ninth game to start the season, Washington shot 50 percent from the floor Saturday and its bench continued its recent resurgence, outscoring its Magic counterpart 48-13. Kris Humphries and Nene each scored 16 points to lead six Wizards in double figures. Humphries added six rebounds and relentless hustle off the bench. John Wall registered his sixth double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 assists.

Tobias Harris paced the Magic’s five double-digit scorers with 19 points. Orlando (4-7) was expecting a boost from Washington area native Victor Oladipo, who made his season debut in the Magic’s triumph over the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night and started his first game Saturday. Oladipo scored 16 points, but needed 17 shots to accumulate the total.

The Wizards are eagerly awaiting one of their own emerging star guards. Beal’s return date will ultimately depend on how the wrist responds this week and if it feels 100 percent. Beal suffered the injury — a non-displaced fracture in the scaphoid bone — when he landed on it in the second quarter of a preseason game against the Charlotte Hornets and underwent surgery two days later. Washington announced Beal would miss approximately six weeks. Friday, Beal’s target day, would mark exactly six weeks since sustaining the injury.

“This is a day-to-day thing,” Wittman said. “I can’t tell you Friday he’s going to be ready or next week. He’s got to get on the floor. He’s got to get his timing. The last thing we want to do is throw him out there when he’s not really ready yet to play.”

The Wizards’ first five shots on Saturday were misfires, but they sank their next six field goal attempts and claimed a 10-point lead nine minutes into the contest. The starting lineup then seamlessly handed off the advantage to the bench, which shouldered the load in the second quarter and cemented their dominance over Orlando’s second unit.

“That’s the key,” Wall said of the bench’s production. “When we’re clicking on the same page we are a pretty touch team to beat, [especially] when play defense like we did tonight.”

Coach Randy Wittman has the Wizards a half game behind Toronto for the best record in the Eastern Conference. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

Washington held Orlando, which shot 51.4 percent in the teams’ first meeting this season, to 34.9 percent shooting in the half. The Magic entered the contest second in the NBA in three-point percentage at 40.6, but converted just 3 of 10 attempts in the game’s initial 24 minutes.

But the script flipped after halftime. The Magic made seven of their first 12 shots and five free throws. Then Porter awoke from his slumber and Wall noticed. The point guard continued feeding the second-year bespectacled forward, directing plays for the Georgetown product down the stretch. Porter completed the sequence with a one-handed tomahawk dunk off Wall’s eighth assist to hike the Wizards’ lead to 11 points with 3:33 remaining.

“They battled back, but we stayed with it and didn’t get into any kind of panic,” Wittman said. “And I thought our bench was just huge.”