Monday, February 8, 2010

Orlando 96, Boston 89

Another mystifying second-half collapse gave Orlando its third win over Boston in four games this season.


Up 11 points at the half in front of the home crowd on Super Bowl Sunday, Boston was outscored 36-11 in a decisive third period. Should the teams finish the regular season with identical records, the Magic would have the tiebreaker for home court advantage.

There are, of course, more important considerations. Namely, what the hell is going on with the Celtics? Sunday's game followed a familiar pattern: The good guys getting out to a comfortable lead, then giving it away with disturbing alacrity, as though it were their intention to do so. This recent trend is getting old, it's getting frustrating, and it's getting worrisome.

Here's something I do like, though: Doc Rivers' post-game acknowledgement that "we played like crap" and that Boston is not, at least now, better than Orlando -- or Atlanta or Los Angeles, for that matter. In both this season and last, the team has experienced serious post-Christmas struggles, and has -- Rivers included -- been very slow -- very slow -- to admit same. And while the cocksuredness that came with rolling to the 2008 championship has its benefits, it may also explain some of the terrible second-half performances we've seen recently. I don't know that "complacency" is the right word, but something approaching it is really the only logical explanation for why this team so often goes from Jekyll to Hyde in the same game. Acknowledging this shortcoming rather than sweeping it under the rug and saying "everything will be fine" is the first step towards rectifying it.

On the bright side, Marquis Daniels returned to action after a lengthly layoff and looked like he hadn't missed a beat, scoring at will in the second quarter against the over-matched J.J. Redick. His return should help solidify the bench, which got good performances Sunday from Glen Davis and Eddie House, and a very bad one from Rasheed Wallace.

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