Boston 109, Orlando 106

Welcome back, Kevin.

[recap] [box score]

Sidelined by a right calf injury since December 29, Kevin Garnett returned to the Boston starting lineup Monday night and scored 19 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and brought the Celtics alive with his trademark energy and chatter. His biggest contribution, however, was a game-sealing steal of a Jameer Nelson pass in the final seconds. After deflecting the pass and securing the ball, Garnett flung out to a streaking Ray Allen, who dribbled off some clock before getting fouled and icing the game at the free throw line.

It was, more or less, a perfect return for KG in the eyes of Celtics fans. Garnett played 31 minutes and moved well for each and every one of them. Call me paranoid if you wish, but I know I wasn't the only Boston fan waiting to see KG in action before I believed that this most recent injury wasn't serious. The memory of two seasons ago, when Garnett and/or the team hid the severity of his knee problems for weeks, is simply too fresh.

This game was about far more than Garnett's healthy return, however. Doc Rivers, as expected, had the fellas play Dwight Howard more or less straight up. No double teams, no putting him at the line at every opportunity. Just straight-up defense, following the philosophy the Cs have been successful with over the past three-plus seasons: Let their best player get his and worry about shutting down the other guys.

The other guys, in the case of the Magic, are good enough to beat you on many nights, and they almost did. Howard had 33 points and 13 rebounds, and his teammates made 11 of 27 three-point shots in support. But they cooled down just enough in the fourth quarter for the Celtics -- who shot 60 percent from the field but just 3-for-10 from behind the arc -- to avenge the Christmas Day loss.

The one issue I had with the way the Celtics handled Howard was that they didn't attack him on the offensive end. Shaquille O'Neal drew a foul on Howard within the first two minutes of the game, but only took seven shots the whole night. Indeed, Howard ended the game -- after nearly 44 minutes of court time -- with just that one foul. Howard is more than capable of playing defense, and I get that Doc is loathe to change the game plan because of just one guy. But Shaq had a couple of buckets early, and it would have been worth it to see whether he could have kept rolling and/or gotten Howard into foul trouble. During one second-quarter sequence, Howard drew Shaq's second foul on an extremely dubious call, getting to the line simply by bringing the ball into Shaq's forearm. It looked bad when the ref called it and a replay on the Jumbotron confirmed that it was a bad call. The next Celtic possession was a perfect opportunity to go to O'Neal and give the officials an opportunity for a makeup call. Instead, Boston went to Paul Pierce. It didn't cost the Celtics any points, as Pierce hit a jumper, but Shaq picked up his third on the next Orlando possession, sending him to the bench. Had Boston gone to O'Neal, it might have been Howard headed to the bench for the rest of the half, rather than Shaq.

Speaking of Howard and the officials, I yelled at my television enough during the game that I feel obligated to mention the officiating, which was horrible in my estimation. In addition to the O'Neal foul mentioned above, Howard was the beneficiary of a bad call on Garnett's third foul late in the second period. Howard was trying to seal Garnett in the post, and Garnett fought throw Howard holding him off with his left arm to steal the entry pass. Danny Crawford apparently thought that KG grabbed Howard's arm to accomplish this, when in fact it was Howard, if anyone, who committed the foul. For someone who constantly complains that he doesn't receive enough protection from the officials, Howard certainly got plenty of it Monday night.

It wasn't just Howard; the Magic shot 36 free throws to Boston's 26, despite taking 27 three-pointers to Boston's ten and despite the fact that Boston scored a ton of points in the paint. Free throw discrepancies in favor of Orlando are rather commonplace given some teams' preferred strategy for defending Howard, but as I mentioned, Boston wasn't wrapping him up every time he caught the ball in a dangerous position the way some teams do. There's just no way Orlando should shoot that many more free throws while also shooting that many more jumpers. And I haven't yet mentioned what I considered to be the most egregious call of the game, a moving screen on KG that nullified a Ray Allen three with less than two minutes to play. I get that KG moves on screens, like basically every NBA big man, but under two minutes in a tie ballgame is a wacky time to start making that call, especially when Howard had been stepping into screens on the other end all night. The inconsistency drove me crazy.

Not to ramble on and on about Howard, but this game underscored for me the reason why I'm not overly concerned with the Magic, at least not as currently constructed. By giving up center Marcin Gortat in the Vince Carter-Jason Richardson trade with Phoenix, Orlando has left itself with no viable backup for Howard. And while Howard is young and fit and fully capable of playing as many minutes as he did, he's also foul prone and if the game had gone differently, Orlando could have found itself in some trouble -- and that's with Kendrick Perkins and Jermaine O'Neal out with injuries. Even so, there were a handful of occasions that Howard didn't challenge easy shots around the basket, and he didn't block a shot in a game for the first time since Game 2 of the Boston series last May. I have to think Howard is more conscious than ever about foul trouble, which negates some of his shotblocking ability and makes Orlando's defense that much less effective.

In order to get a backup, however, Orlando would probably have to part with either Ryan Anderson or J.J. Redick, young players who, like seemingly everyone else on the team, are real threats from downtown. Anderson entered Monday's game late in the first quarter and promptly hit four threes to bring the Magic back from an early ten-point deficit, and while Redick spent much of a crucial second-half stretch being taken to school by Ray Allen, he has -- against all odds -- became a vital role player that I know Orlando doesn't want to part with. Given that Gilbert Arenas has not emerged as much of a threat since arriving from Washington in the trade for Rashard Lewis, the loss of either one of those guys would be a major hit to their depth. And yet it's hard to see the Magic getting through Boston and the Lakers in the postseason without a backup center.

There was more to this game -- Pierce patiently waiting as Boston rode Allen's hot hand until the final minute, when he calmly sank a jumper after being fouled by Richardson to put the Cs up three; Glen Davis finally refusing to settle for jump shots; Nate Robinson's continued struggle to find his role in the absence of Delonte West -- but that's enough for now. The focus shifts to Detroit -- surprise blowout winners over the reeling Mavericks on Monday afternoon -- on Wednesday, with Utah coming in on Friday and road games in Portland, Phoenix, and Los Angeles against the Lakers to finish out the month.

The Next Lamb: The Orlando Magic

Game 28: Boston (23-4) at Orlando (17-12)

Saturday, December 25

2:30 p.m. Eastern

ABC

If you are but a casual observer of the NBA, you are probably surprised to see the 17-12 record next to the Orlando Magic. Over the past few seasons, the Magic have emerged as an Eastern Conference rival, reaching the conference finals last season and beating Boston and Cleveland on the way to an NBA Finals loss to the Lakers the season before. When this current season opened, not much had changed, and Orlando was expected to make another deep playoff run. After consecutive wins at Chicago and Detroit in the first three days of December, the Magic were 15-4, and everything seemed hunky-dory.

But Orlando lost its next four games, beat the Clippers, then lost to Denver, and the front office decided to shake things up. They sent Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat to Phoenix for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu, and Earl Clark, and shipped Rashard Lewis off to Washington for Gilbert Arenas. They promptly dropped three more -- to Philly (the day of the trades, so they were shorthanded), at Atlanta, and to Dallas -- before snapping San Antonio's ten-game winning streak Thursday night.

More thoughts on this rather shocking attempt to rebuild on the fly in a moment. In terms of the Christmas Day game, it's tough to know what to expect. Sure, the Magic still have Dwight Howard, who has put up gaudy numbers the last four games and looks to have developed a little bit more of an offensive game in the offseason, and they still have Jameer Nelson, their sharpshooting point guard. But Carter and Lewis were starters, and Pietrus and Gortat were rotation players. It's going to take some time for them to jell, and so it's hard to use Saturday's matchup as any sort of measuring stick. They certainly looked impressive in putting up 123 points against San Antonio, but the Spurs were on the second night of a back-to-back and haven't been nearly as good defensively this season as we're accustomed to.

Looking toward the rest of the season and beyond, it's certainly a bold move. Frankly, it seemed to me that the front office panicked a bit: No one likes to lose five out of six, but four of those losses came on the road to possible playoff teams (Milwaukee, Portland, Utah, and Denver) and the fifth was to a solid division rival (Atlanta). Obviously, the goal in Orlando is a championship and you have to be able to beat those types of teams, even on the road, to win a title, but it seems like an over-reaction to turn over so much of the roster in response to a little slide. My hunch is that Orlando perhaps wasn't happy with its roster heading into the season and had been looking to make moves, and that this is the time that a deal to their liking materialized.

From an Xs and Os perspective, one glaring hole this leaves on the Magic roster is backup center, of which Gortat was one of the league's most effective (and highest-paid). It's especially glaring given the makeup of the various title contenders. That is, if the Magic are to win the title, then they have to plan, at least, on beating Boston and the Lakers. That means going through Kendrick Perkins, Shaquille O'Neal, and Jermaine O'Neal (who should return to action Saturday, by the way) in the former case, and Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom in the latter case. The loss of Gortat leaves Howard and the undersized Brandon Bass (a Glen Davis-ish player) as Orlando's only viable bigs, which you have to think isn't going to be sufficient to beat the Celtics or Lakers. The team has said that it will look to add another big via trade before the trade deadline in a couple of months, but one would be justified in wondering where that player will come from and at what price he will come.

As for the other losses and additions, Richardson should fill in reasonably well for Carter. A little more consistent, perhaps, a little less injury prone, but not as dynamic as Vince, and not as a good a passer. He can fill it up, though, and is a threat beyond the arc. Clark is a non-factor for the foreseeable future; Phoenix didn't pick up his contract option for next year and it's hard to see him breaking into the rotation this season. The key to this deal is Turkoglu and Arenas, and how well they make up for the departure of Lewis and Pietrus (plus whatever they have to give up to get a replacement for Gortat).

Turkoglu was a key part of Orlando's Finals run two years ago, then bolted to Toronto for a hefty contract. He was miserable as a Raptor (both in mood and in performance), lobbied for and got a trade in the offseason, and was basically as ineffective in 25 games in Phoenix as he was in Toronto. He's moved into the starting lineup in Lewis' place in three games with the Magic, going 3-for-15 in his first two outings before bouncing back with a respectable 5-for-10 against the Spurs.

When he's at his best, Turkoglu is a catalyst. He would take some of the ballhandling responsibilities away from Nelson the way he did in 2008-09, when Nelson shot a career-best 50.3 percent from the floor and 45.3 percent from three. (Recall, too, that Orlando made its big postseason run that year with Nelson out of the lineup due to late-season shoulder injury). I, for one, am not at all sure that Turkoglu is, or ever will be, close to his best, but it's possible that his decline in effectiveness over the past season-plus was due to unhappiness. Even if his best days are behind him, he won't be much of a downgrade over Lewis, a fairly one-dimensional three-point shooter with similar career percentage behind the arc to Turkoglu.

Arenas is a huge x-factor. With his recent injury history, it's easy enough to think of him as washed up, but he's only 28, and if he regains his form, he's instantly one of the most dangerous men in the NBA with the basketball in his hands. It appears that he's taking on a role with the second unit, and that strategy has to be right: No matter what you think of Nelson, both Turkoglu and Arenas need the ball to be effective, and they cancel each other out a little bit if they have to share it. But if he is playing well, he's a sixth man of the year candidate type player, injury/foul insurance for Richardson and Nelson, and another option late in the game. Of course, who knows how often he'll play well. I've only seen him once this year, when the Celtics pasted the Wizards, and I wrote then that Arenas did nothing but stand around shooting three-pointers all night. Gil was clearly unhappy with his situation in Washington, though, and perhaps his play will change with a change of scenery. Orlando's certainly counting on it.

As for Arenas' much-publicized off-court issues (you know, the gun in the locker room thing), most reports suggest that once the hammer came down, he put that stuff behind him. (Indeed, it may have contributed to his melancholy demeanor this season). Still, Arenas has always been a peculiar, unique character, and a guy like that -- particularly one who likes to shoot as often as he does -- is always capable of disrupting a locker room. I'm not saying that I think Arenas will try to stir things up, but if he does, I'm not sure Orlando has the personalities required to prevent it from becoming a big distraction. I think Stan Van Gundy is a good coach, but he's high-strung; Dwight Howard is an easy-going guy, but he's young and sensitive. No one in that locker room has won anything, and Arenas was brought in as part of a plan to put the team over the top. The ingredients are present for a bit of a meltdown, though I expect Arenas to behave.

I haven't even addressed defense, in part because it's always a little difficult to tell how individual defenders will fit in with specific defensive schemes. I can say with certainty that Turkoglu's a pretty bad on-ball defender and that while Arenas has been a big steals guy throughout his career, he's not a lockdown type of guy. Howard is perhaps the league's premier shotblocker and he can erase a lot of mistakes, but he's also foul-prone, a characteristic that is magnified by the fact that he doesn't have a backup, at least while the team looks for a replacement for Gortat. Pietrus was a pretty good defender, too, and there isn't anyone on the roster that immediately comes to mind as someone to fill that role.

In short, the Magic have taken a big risk here. Once the team gets acclimated with itself, they've probably done no worse than tread water offensively -- with a chance at great improvement on that end -- but they've probably gotten worse defensively, a big deal for a team coached by Van Gundy that has hung its hat on defense. In theory, they're less reliant on jumpshots -- a big criticism I've had with them -- but now they're more reliant on "outscoring" opponents, as opposed to winning games on the defensive ends. They've also taken some risks with their team makeup.

Moreover, it's unclear whether this team will come together fully this season, and, if it does, whether it's even enough to beat the league's elite. The best they can hope for is probably something akin to their 2008-09 team, and that squad needed seven games to beat the Kevin Garnett-less Celtics in the Eastern semis and never really challenged the Lakers in the Finals. With the Celtics certainly better this year and the Lakers, Spurs, and Heat hanging around as well, it's tricky to see this team getting it done -- particularly if it needs to sacrifice a player like J.J. Redick to pick up a backup pivot. While some may applaud the Magic for making this kind of bold move in the middle of the season, it says here that it won't be enough to push them over the top.