Orlando 86, Boston 78

Caught the first quarter and second half of this one sandwiched around Christmas dinner.

[recap] [box score]

Saturday's game was an ugly, low-scoring affair, which was a pattern when the Magic and Celtics met last year -- during the regular season, anyway. I could say that the Cs would have won had they made a bunch of shots they usually make, but the same is true of Orlando. It was one of those games where both teams played pretty good defense, and the effort on that end was magnified from some pretty poor shooting from both sides.

From a Boston perspective, we lost this game because we didn't have Rajon Rondo, plain and simple. Nate Robinson had his worst game as Rondo's understudy, making just two of 15 shots, the majority of which were good looks. The Magic basically could leave Robinson alone on offense, the same way opponents do against Rondo -- but Rondo provides much more playmaking and doesn't use as many possessions as Nate does shooting jumpers. And while Robinson did a nice job keeping Jameer Nelson in check for most of the game, he lost him on a screen on a key possession late, as Nelson hit a three that I believe gave the Magic the lead for good.

While the Celtics probably would have won with Rondo, Robinson wasn't the only Celtic who had a bad game. Ray Allen mad just three of 13 shots, and Shaquille O'Neal had just two points and fouled out despite playing fewer than 13 minutes.

Of course, the Magic have some "we would have won easily ifs" of their own, most notably the fact that Dwight Howard scored just six points against a depleted Celtics frontline (Kendrick Perkins is of course out, and Jermaine O'Neal made his first appearance since November 8). More disturbing is the fact that Howard took just four shots. He was in a bit of foul trouble for most of the game, but his teammates weren't looking for him much even when he was on the floor.

This will be something to watch with Orlando's new look. While some of the departed Magic players -- guys like Rashard Lewis and Mickael Pietrus -- weren't exactly shy about hoisting shots, they were mostly spot up guys (or run off of screen guys). On the other hand, the new Magic players -- guys like Hedo Turkoglu and Gilbert Arenas -- tend to pound the ball a bit more and look for their own shot.

Howard is a really important offensive weapon. He's improved his arsenal this year, and because he's a poor free throw shooter, teams send him to the line a ton -- so he gets the opposition into foul trouble and helps put his team in the bonus situation fairly early in the quarter. But he's not so polished as to consistently demand the ball in the post, and the new additions may make it easier, in a sense, to forget about him on offense. That wasn't the case leading up to the Boston game (Howard had big offensive nights in those) but the Celtics have been very good over the past few seasons at taking away one part of your offense and forcing you to rely on another part (usually outside shots). It will be interesting to see if the Magic make Howard a focal point against the Celtics in future meetings (including, potentially, the playoffs). While the Celtics have generally done a decent job on Howard the past couple of seasons, I'm sure they'd rather have Brandon Bass (21 points on Sunday) try to beat them.