BSJ Game Report: Magic 117, Celtics 109 - Cold shooting, turnovers, doom Celtics in Robert Williams' return

Everything you need to know about the Celtics' loss to the Orlando Magic with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics started the game hot from 3, but then cooled off quickly to fall into a deep slump. The road trip hangover really took hold in the second and third quarters, when the Magic were able to build a lead as high as 19. The low point seemed to be Al Horford’s ejection for a flagrant elbow and a Jayson Tatum technical foul, but Robert Williams’ return to the game midway through the third helped Boston cut the lead to single digits, but they never could seriously threaten.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Road hangover: Woof. This was rough … even rougher than I expected. It doesn’t take a basketball savant to predict a gross game on the first day back from a long trip, especially against a bad team. Even though this was predictable, it was still terrible to watch. This game was there for the taking multiple times, and the Celtics just never had it in them to go get it. 

COLD shooting: Boston shot 41.7% overall, 23.9% from 3 (11-46). They actually started out hot, going 5-7 early on and building a 17-7 lead. They shot 6-37 after that, so basically 15% from deep for three and a half quarters. 

“If you’re open you gotta shoot it. And we’re open, so I'm not going to tell someone who's open not to shoot it,” Joe Mazzulla said. “Can we still compete on the defensive end? Can we still fight for great shots on offense? And so do we want to say every time we don't shoot well, we lose? No. So when we don't shoot well, we have to find other areas to affect the game and that starts with our defense. And then when our defense is great, we can get out in early transition and get some easy baskets, but they can't pass up open shots.”

Rob returns: I’ll get into this more separately, but he generally looked pretty good physically. He got way up for some dunks, blocked a shot, scared the crap out of guys driving to the basket -- you know, Robert Williams stuff. But he also was out of position, confused, and his conditioning is going to take some time to get there. 

TURNING POINT

The Magic went on an 11-2 run to start the third quarter and build their lead up to 19 points. Yes, the Celtics got it down to single digits after that, so we can easily point to a later run as the final nail in the coffin, but this is where it first felt really clear that this wasn’t going to be Boston’s night. Horford’s ejection happened in the middle of this mess.

ONE UP 

Robert Williams: I think he was good all things considered. He was, if nothing else, reminiscent of his old self in some ways. He was also the game's lone bright spot. 

THREE DOWN

Jaylen Brown: Brutal game from Brown who not only shot poorly (7-17) but it seemed like every time the Celtics were on the verge of gaining some kind of momentum and build a run, he would turn it over. He finished with 7 turnovers. 

Al Horford: He came out hot, but then he got ejected in the second quarter. He was clearly frustrated, but it was a really uncharacteristic loss of composure for Horford. He wound up the elbow and followed through, so it was clearly a flagrant foul. It just feels like could have been better about how he responded to being grabbed and fouled. Considering he had the fresh legs because he missed the road trip, it would have been nice to have him on the floor taking the shots everyone else was missing.

Everyone else (minus Tatum): I’m just going to do the catch-all here because the rest of the story is the same. The shooting was terrible, mistakes were being made all over the place, and while the Celtics made a few good plays here and there, no one else had what could be called a good game. 

ONE MEH

Jayson Tatum: He had 31 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 turnovers, but the numbers don’t tell the full story. I don’t think he had a particularly good game, but I can’t call that stat line a bad game either. 31 and 7 against an NBA team … any NBA team … is tough. But I can’t look at that game and say Tatum was super impactful either.

I guess it’s because 20 of those points came in less than 14 minutes to start the game. Just like the shooting overall, everything was great until about halfway through the second quarter. So Tatum’s numbers dropped with everyone else’s at that point. Tatum scored 11 points in his final 24 minutes on 3-8 shooting. So the early burst was nice, but he didn’t do much after that to help pull the team from its slump.

TOP PLAYS (a.k.a. the Robert Williams highlight reel)

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL  PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Moving on

The whole first game back from a long trip is pretty real. There's a reason a lot of us who follow the league closely are aware of the phenomenon, and in a lot of ways, having it be the Orlando Magic only made things worse. 

And on top of that, Boston coming out hot right away probably gave everyone a false sense of confidence. They built an early lead, Robert Williams was back on the floor, he caught a lob, the building was rocking … and the Magic kept hanging around and slowly closing the gap. 

It felt like everyone was congratulating themselves on a job well done well before the job was done. 

In fact, I turned away for a second to make some notes and when I looked up, the game was close. I thought maybe I had misjudged this team and they were going to get past the mental hurdle of the road trip. 

Instead, the Magic took advantage of a Celtics team unable to muster the proper amount of energy.

“They played harder,” Malcolm Brogdon admitted afterward. “They made shots, we did not make shots that we usually make tonight, but, overall, I thought they gave more effort. And I think that's the issue. It’s not the non-shotmaking, it’s that. We’ll pick it up on Sunday for sure.”

Now the Celtics have played some level of lackluster basketball in their last four games. I can hear some level of concern in people wondering what’s going on. 

I personally don’t feel that much concern, but I will if they don’t come out and wreck Orlando on Sunday. Orlando can be tough, but this game tonight was very, very winnable, and the Celtics just couldn't get out of their own way. They’ve got time now to really recover and come back with renewed energy against this same team. 

Smack ‘em around and I think everyone will feel better. Make it tough again and … well, we’ll it might not be a pretty start to the work week for Celtics fans. 

NEXT UP: Celtics and Magic do it again on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.