BSJ Game Report: Celtics 116, Magic 111- Jaylen Brown's career high 50 salvages a win on what was almost another very bad night

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics' overtime win against the Orlando Magic with BSJ insight and analysis:

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics came out and built a nice lead against a bad Orlando team and it looked like the C’s might be able to actually have a comfortable game [pause for laughter]. Then they turned the ball over a ton in the second quarter, allowing the Magic to cut a nearly 15 point lead down single digits at halftime. Then the Celtics gave up a massive third-quarter run that allowed the Magic to build a 14-point lead. The Celtics then stormed all the way back to tie the game in regulation and hold on to win in overtime.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Jaylen Brown drops a career-best 50: Brown’s game was basically a microcosm of the game. He was hitting shots early, but he was coughing up some awful turnovers. Had the Celtics not come back, the story of the night would have been how the box score lied about the quality of Brown’s game. Frankly, he needed to drop 50 to make up for those turnovers. 

The Celtics' best and worst were on full display: The first and fourth quarter C’s were exactly what you’d want them to be. The second and third quarter Celtics were disgusting. 

“Obviously, a little roller coaster there with the way we played,” Ime Udoka said. “To start the game and finish the game was what we'd like to see overall. That lull and those stretches that have hurt us throughout the year somewhat in the second and third quarter, and mainly due to turnovers, got a little careless there. We're playing really fast and a little reckless at times and let them get back in the game, but overall, we showed growth. We've lost quite a few of those this year, we got out there defensively and got what we wanted toward the end of the game, so happy with how we fought back and battled back and showed growth in that area.”

I guess that's true. Normally the Celtics would have found a way to lose that game. I was fully expecting a miracle with .6 on the clock at the end, but Orlando made the mistake of inbounding the ball before calling the timeout. A better, smarter team would have just called the timeout, got the ball at half court, and then who knows what would have happened. 

TURNING POINT

Brown converted an and-1 to cut the lead to 96-85 with 4:07 to go. It was the beginning of an 18-4 run to close the game for the Celtics to head into overtime. Those were his 35th and 36th points. 

THREE UP

Jaylen Brown: Brown scored 24 of his 50 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. Much more on JB coming up.

Dennis Schroder: Like Jaylen, I was ready to destroy Schroder in the game report. He was awful early on, but he did get better as the game wore on. He had big moments in that 18-4 run to end the fourth and then he started the overtime with a layup/steal/3-pointer sequence that got Boston off to a good start. I’m putting him in the “up” for how he finished the game, and I’m allowing for a slow start in his first game out of COVID protocols.

Marcus Smart: Smart didn’t shoot well but he was in pretty good control of the game. Orlando’s big run came with Smart off the floor and Boston’s disorganization showed. There was a point there in the second half where the Celtic were trying to break out of their sluggishness and Smart was imploring his guys to keep moving on offense. 

“We got a little stagnant,” Smart said. “We let those turnovers really affect us a little bit, and they just, in my eyes, it was deja vu all over again for us. Just trying to keep our confidence up, constantly talking to my guys, just trying to keep those guys going.”

ONE DOWN

Payton Pritchard: I sense a trend of rough Pritchard games now that Schroder is back. He played 12:39 and missed 4 of the 5 shots he took. 

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

A win is a win: When you’re hungry, you don’t question where that meal came from. You just eat. 

I don’t feel like anything was solved here. I think a team better than Orlando makes this one of those embarrassing losses that no one wants to talk about. 

“We needed to win. No way we could have lost this game, wouldn’t have been good,” Brown said. “The media wouldn’t have been good. I wanted to get a win for everybody.”

The Celtics always seem to make life harder on themselves than they should. Obviously there's some credit that has to go to the Magic for hitting some of the shots they hit and working hard to get a 14-point lead. But the Celtics, and Brown, really gifted them 23 points off 21 turnovers. 

“The main thing was those nine turnovers in the second quarter,” Udoka said. “And then at times when it's feeling like it's going easy for us, we get away from doing what we do well to get those leads … we got careless because we were scoring the ball easy early in the game, and let them back in it. Went from a 14 point lead to basically a three-point game at halftime due to our turnovers and careless play.”

But let’s look at the bright side. The Celtics only turned the ball over once in the fourth quarter and once again in the overtime, which is really good. And yes, a better team probably buries the Celtics here. But they’ve been through that in December. Maybe part of being in January and getting some more cupcakes on the schedule is these down performances not becoming absolute heartbreakers. 

“We’re trying to put ‘20-21 behind us. It’s a new year. We’re trying to start off on the right note,” Brown said. “First game we got a win but we have to continue to build good habits as we welcome guys back into the lineup and things like that. We have to make a push to win some games here and I think we can do it.”

Take the win, move on, and hope that maybe this time the lesson sticks a little bit.