Celtics
The Celtics gave up a staggering 26 points off turnovers.
The Celtics dropped Game 3 of their first-round series against the Magic, falling 95-93 after a bizarre final minute despite Jayson Tatum’s return to action.
Here are the takeaways.
What happened at the end?
Despite one of their more disastrous offensive performances in recent memory, the Celtics managed to fight their way back into Friday’s game on multiple occasions, but after a 4-0 run by Franz Wagner (which we will get to shortly), they entered the final minute trailing by four.
From there, things got weird.
It started at the 51-second mark, when Wagner missed a 3-pointer. Derrick White and Wendell Carter Jr. pursued the rebound toward the sideline, and the officials awarded the ball to the Magic after a bizarre play – the ball appeared to be out on Carter, but they ruled that it touched White’s head as he was standing out of bounds.
Given another opportunity to essentially put the game on ice, the Magic couldn’t convert – this time in large part because the Celtics had finally managed to sub Jaylen Brown in for Kristaps Porzingis, who was drowning defensively (again, more on that in a minute).
Al Horford blocked Wagner’s 3-point attempt, and it bounced out of bounds. The officials ruled it Celtics ball … only to change it a second later because Horford blocked the shot and nobody touched it on its way to the baseline.
Still, the Magic couldn’t convert (another miss by Wagner, challenged heavily by Horford), and the Celtics ended up getting an almost instantaneous basket as Derrick White raced the length of the floor for a dunk. Two-point game.
On the ensuing possession, Paolo Banchero dribbled the ball up the floor but fumbled it trying to get around Jayson Tatum, and the officials called an inexplicable eight-second violation even though the ball clearly crossed halfcourt, and Tatum clearly tipped it away – forcing Banchero backward. The Magic protested, the other officials agreed, and the call was correctly reversed. The Magic then ran the entire clock down and fired up a 3-pointer as the shot-clock expired, and the ball caromed away from the Celtics, who chased it down nearly to halfcourt before calling timeout.
The clock showed 0.3 seconds, and while replays appeared to show that at least 0.8 seconds (and perhaps up to 1.0) would have been appropriate, the officials did nothing. The Celtics protested, but the decision was made, and their final play was a wet thud – a hopeless lob to the rim by White, where Porzingis watched the Magic swat the ball away.
If you read that entire tedious, slow-moving recap of the final minute, congratulations: You now know what it was like to watch it. A dried-up river has more flow.
The Celtics went to pieces in the third quarter.
The Celtics don’t often fall apart these days, but Friday’s collapse was costly and carried echoes of previous playoff runs.
Coming out of halftime, the Celtics appeared to be in a great position – up by 10, they came out of the locker room looking confident. After giving up a quick bucket, Tatum – who was red-hot in the first half – buried a 3-pointer, and the Celtics looked like they were about to take a commanding 3-0 lead.
Instead, the Magic came roaring back, aided massively by a Celtics team that entirely forgot how they should play basketball. The Magic forced an uncharacteristic 19 turnovers, and the Celtics shot just 3-for-16 in the third quarter as the offense broke down into isolation possession, and passing lanes collapsed. The Magic won the third quarter 24-11, and from that point on, the Celtics were fighting uphill.
Kristaps Porzingis is having a disastrous series.
During last season’s playoffs, the lack of Kristaps Porzingis was a major storyline after he suffered a rare knee injury that cost him nearly the entire postseason.
This year (admittedly through three games), the lack of Kristaps Porzingis is … still a storyline. Porzingis had a nightmarish Game 1, he was inefficient in Game 2, and one could make a strong case that he cost the Celtics a chance to claim Game 3 late in the fourth quarter. With 3:07 left, Porzingis found himself open in the paint and clearly wasn’t entirely comfortable or certain what to do. The right play was to shoot, and he did, but the right result was to make the 6-foot hook shot, and he missed it badly.
The defensive end was even worse – Franz Wagner picked on Porzingis as blatantly as the Celtics pick on opponents, calling over whoever Porzingis was guarding to join him in the pick-and-roll. Porzingis could do nothing about Wagner’s drives, and the Magic regained control of the game on back-to-back buckets by their star forward with just over a minute remaining. As time ticked away, Mazzulla tried to get Brown – who had five fouls – back in the game for Porzingis, but possession after empty possession passed without a chance to do so.
The Celtics need Porzingis to join the series. The bloody face is great optics, but he is now 9-for-32 from the field and giving them very little on the defensive end.
Jayson Tatum returned with mixed results.
After a lot of speculation about who might be available, the Celtics were actually relatively close to full health – only Jrue Holiday was missing from their rotation.
Tatum – who was doubtful until Friday evening – returned and scored 36 points on 22 shots, but he turned the ball over seven times, tying his playoff record. Brown followed up his own 36 point performance with 19, but he turned the ball over six times as well.
Another questionable play by the Magic.
By losing on Friday, the Celtics guaranteed themselves 48 more minutes (at least) against the Magic, which will not be pleasant and may not be entirely safe for everyone involved.
Brown returned to the game and eventually appeared to be fine, but Cole Anthony – whose flying knee to Payton Pritchard’s thigh in Game 1 was equally questionable – became the latest Magic player to walk right up to the line where “physicality” becomes something else.
The margins were not kind to the Celtics.
The Celtics surrendered 16 points on 15 offensive rebounds. They gave up a staggering 26 points off turnovers.
Meanwhile, the Magic actually attempted more 3-pointers – 32 to the Celtics’ 27 – and the Celtics only made one (nine) more than the Magic (eight).
In a two-point loss, the Celtics can look back at a lot of factors that broke hard against them and ruminate on how close they came to stealing Game 3 and a 3-0 series lead.
Instead …
The Celtics will face an emboldened and equally desperate Magic team in Game 4, which tips off at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
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