Boston 90, Orlando 80

Boston passed an important test tonight.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

It's far too early to call this NBA season a four-horse race, but at this stage, four teams have established themselves as the cream of the crop: Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando in the East, and the Los Angeles Lakers in the West. After an opening-night win against the Cavaliers and a blowout of the Magic that was win number nine of a 19-game winning streak, the Celtics had lost their last two matchups with this crew: a tight one in LA on Christmas Day, and a 15-point debacle in Cleveland two weeks ago. The Cs had ripped off six straight wins since dropping that one to the Cavs, but there was a lot more at stake Thursday night in Orlando.

Boston came away with a relatively comfortable victory, opening up an eight-point halftime lead, and letting the Magic closer than that margin just twice, when Jameer Nelson sandwiched buckets around a Glen Davis jumper to twice cut the lead to seven with fewer than three minutes to play. But it didn't necessarily come easily, as this was one of the ugliest games of the season. Both teams looked disjointed offensively from the get-go; the building was pretty much dead, despite a reported sellout crowd; the officiating was disruptive and inconsistent.

The offense was ugly. It was a lot of Paul Pierce going one-on-one with an overmatched Hedo Turkoglu, with an unexpected contribution from Davis, whose jumper was falling tonight.

Here's how bad the offense was: The Celtics registered nine assists on 35 baskets, a rate of just over 25 percent. Compare that to team averages for the season coming into the game: 22-plus assists per game (4th best in the league); assists on nearly 61 percent of all baskets.

Nine assists is a very low number. I don't have time to check to make sure, but it has to be a season-low. Hell, Rajon Rondo is averaging eight per game, and he has 13 double-digit assist games already this year.

I'm feeling good about the team, but I'd like us to have a more solid idea of our frontcourt rotation. For whatever reason, Doc doesn't like starting Davis or Leon Powe, so when Kendrick Perkins got injured, Brian Scalabrine stepped into the starting lineup. Scal played well enough to prove that he deserves minutes as a passable rotation player, but its come at the expense of Leon Powe, who I think is the most solid of the three backup frontcourt players. When he's playing well, Davis is the more dynamic offensive player, but he's just as capable of hurting the team with a 1-for-12 performance (like he did in a recent win over Toronto) as he is of providing an unexpected spark, like he did tonight; doing a nice job on the three-million-vote man, Dwight Howard (note that Kevin Garnett will join Howard as a frontcourt starter for the East in the All-Star game - the reserves will be named shortly, and I expect Pierce, Ray Allen, and maybe even Rajon Rondo to join KG on the squad); scoring over Howard; hitting midrange jumpers with unusual accuracy. Powe hasn't developed into the versatile player I think he's capable of being, but he's not as much of a liability when he's playing poorly, as he seems more aware of his limitations than Davis is. I'm more of a Powe guy than a Davis guy, but I don't really care as long as a rotation is set and whoever is in it is playing well relatively consistently. What concerns me is that I don't know that Davis is that consistent player, and I worry about Powe's confidence, as he seems to have lost minutes despite not playing that poorly, while Davis has been given minutes without playing so well that Doc can't possibly keep him on the bench. Against Orlando, it wasn't until Perkins and Davis had each picked up three personal fouls checking Howard that Powe entered the game, with 2:22 remaining in the first half. I'm worried that Doc is ruining Leon by yanking him around like this.

Next game is Sunday vs. Dallas, on ABC at 1 p.m. Eastern.