In case you haven't heard, the Celtics' loss to Orlando was a physical game. I’m sure you did, though, because Joe Mazzulla said the word “physical” or “physicality” nine times in his postgame interview. Jaylen Brown said it 11. Kristaps Porzingis was slacking by only mentioning it a couple of times.
The Celtics didn’t just get a lump of coal in their stocking on Monday night, the Magic took the stocking down and beat Boston over the head with it like they were coached by Colonel Jessup ordering a code red. It didn't matter that Orlando was missing Paolo Banchero and the Wagner brothers. The guys who pulled those black and blue jerseys over their heads were more than happy to send Boston home with a few bruises.
“That's kind of the team that they've had for the last few games,” Mazzulla said. “They have a system. They have a DNA about their physical defense and the way they play. And so regardless of who's in, who's out, you know what you're getting from that team.”
The Magic are a bit of a throwback. They aren’t going to bury you under an avalanche of 3-pointers on most nights. They are the fourth seed in the East right now because they hold opponents to 5.5 fewer points per game than any other team in the conference. Their defense is so good that even though their offense is the third-worst in the East, they still have a +3.4 point differential. Every other team in the bottom seven is no better than -2.9.
“It’s a fighting group, it’s a gritty group,” Orlando head coach Jamahl Mosley said. “It’s a confident group, it’s a group that believes in themselves.”
That belief manifested itself in a monster third quarter than caught the Celtics napping. Boston had played a beautiful first quarter and finished their second quarter strong. They had a 15-point lead at the half and it looked like the Celtics could do whatever they wanted on the floor with little resistance. But instead they were hit with the opposite.
“They turned up the physicality, and we just didn't execute well enough,” Porzingis said. “We got a little bit careless in some situations. They got some steals, got the crowd into it. … you could tell how much it meant to them to win this game.”
Indeed, the Magic were pretty happy to get the win. Guys like Trevelin Queen and Tristan da Silva aren’t exactly household names, but here they were putting the champs away in an NBA game.
Queen spent time homeless, living out of a car trying to make his basketball dream come true. He came into this game with 334 total minutes played in his NBA career, which is now in its fourth year. But he confidently made plays to hold Boston off. Da Silva is a rookie, but he wasn’t afraid of the moment. He calmly knocked down the open 3-pointer that iced it.
“I don’t want them to act surprised,” Mosley said. “We talk about the belief you have to have, the work ethic you have to have, the togetherness that we have. That's this group. That's what they’ve shown, that's what they continue to prove, and they believe it.”
For a team like Orlando, opportunities like this are chances to prove something. Queen and da Silva will return to their normal roles when the Magic are whole, but this was their opportunity to show they aren’t just worthy of minutes, but they are good enough to match up against the league’s best.
Meanwhile, the league’s best treated this result like more a reminder of where they ultimately need to be. This wasn’t proof of anything other than December basketball is more of a tuneup for the real stuff later on in the season.
“I think overall, it's great to play against a team like this that's able to have this kind of intensity, this kind of physicality in a regular season game,” Porzingis said. “Hats off to them. Hats off to Mosley, their coach, who's getting their minds like this, and their culture like this, for these regular season games. It's really a great job he's doing over there.”
You don’t have to squint too hard to read between the lines. I’ll count words again because his use of “regular season” twice in that quote says more than anything else he said after the game. As far as the Celtics are concerned, Orlando celebrated this game like it was their championship and Boston is already turning the page to the Sixers on Christmas day.
Just put one foot in front of the other, keep moving forward, and try not to trip too often. The Celtics are 3-3 over their last six games but it’s nary a bother to anyone. Sure, the Celtics want to win, but they're not going to sweat it if they don’t.
It’s annoying, but they’ve been proven correct so far. Even with their little stumble recently, they have the third-best record in the league and are only 3.5 games away from the top. Only three teams score more points than they do and they're still capable of being an elite defense when they want to be.
The freak-out level would be off the charts if this was happening a year ago. And even though some of that anxiety is starting to show itself in comments and social media, everyone is still well aware of what this team is capable of doing, even when they're not at their best. Hell, even with how poorly they played in this second half of this game, an even average shooting night might equal a win.
For now, this game will simply have to serve as a reminder to the Celtics that teams are always going to treat these games like a Game 7, and this is the level Boston is going to have to reach if they want to avoid ever playing one of those this spring.
“That's what the playoffs are,” Mazzulla said. “That's what it's about. And you have to be able to execute under those circumstances.”