Boston 87, Orlando 56

[recap] [box score]

Raise your hand if you predicted a 30-point game Monday night.

:Raises hand:

Actually, that's not entirely accurate. I predicted an even larger margin of victory.

"Darn," I said to my girlfriend when we I saw all the Celtics who were inactive for the game, using a word that is a bit stronger than "darn."

"We're going to lose by 100."

I was exaggerating, of course, but not by much. A blowout seemed imminent. Rajon R-ndo, Ray Allen, Keyon Dooling, and Mickael Pietrus were all in civilian clothes with various maladies. That's our starting point guard, our starting shooting guard, and the two men who back them up, all out of commission. In addition, Chris Wilcox, one of just three big bodies on the Boston roster, was down with an injury -- with the league's most dominant center since Shaq's heyday coming into town. How could the Celtics keep it competitive, never mind win?

The answer, of course, is that I have no idea. I can't explain why Kevin Garnett looked better than he has all season, why Marquis Daniels and Jermaine O'Neal played with more energy than they have in weeks, or why Sasha Pavlovic was flying around the court, making steals and blocking shots. And I certainly have no explanation for why the now 11-5 Magic played as poorly as they did, setting a franchise record for offensive futility.

I'd like to say that the Celtics turned a corner tonight, but Orlando was so bad that this game is probably best described as an anomaly, just another funny night in an NBA season that promises to be even more full of surprising results than usual. The win is significant, sure, and could be a big confidence boost moving forward, but as fans, I would caution against reading much into the margin of victory and the dominating nature of the performance.

With that heaping spoonful of salt served, I'd be remiss to not mention that the defense, almost from the beginning, was excellent. Garnett and Pavlovic each had steals on one of Orlando's first three possessions. O'Neal blocked two shots and drew a charge in the first seven minutes. Howard had 12 points in the first quarter, but went 0-10 the rest of the way. Boston doesn't double Howard much, and O'Neal and Greg Stiemsma did a good job, as Kendrick Perkins did before them, of pushing Howard a bit farther from the basket than he likes, forcing him into a number of tough running hooks.

No one was better defensively than Avery Bradley, however. He had three steals and one block, and hounded Jameer Nelson into at least two other turnovers with the kind of hounding, full-court defense you don't often see in the NBA. His only two baskets came early in the first quarter, and his offensive limitations will probably limit his role considerably once the regulars heal, but he didn't turn it over once on Monday, a major plus after he coughed it up six times against Washington on Sunday.

Honestly, you could go down the roster tonight and say nothing but good things about everyone who suited up. Garnett had a double with 14 points and ten rebounds, adding five steals and two blocks for good measure. Paul Pierce with a 19/5/7. Brandon Bass burning his old team, tying Pierce for game-high honors with 19 points. Even JaJuan Johnson, the only one of ten Celtics in uniform who didn't play until garbage time, had a thunderous jam and a nice baseline turnaround. (His other two shot attempts were blocked, however -- so much for nothing but good things.)

A few non-game related notes:

* Glen Davis got a nice acknowledgement from the team and the crowd, in recognition of his four years of service in green. He then went out and made two of nine shots, making the Celtics fans even more appreciative of Bass than they already were. Von Wafer got no such recognition, and took out his aggression with five quick points in the final seconds.

* As they do a few times a year, Tommy Heinsohn and Mike Gorman brought Celtics CEO and co-owner Wyc Grousbeck to the broadcast table for the second quarter. I love it when they do this; I don't know if other teams do it, but they should. Grousbeck didn't sugarcoat the team's early season struggles, noting that the team wasn't ready (read: was out of shape) when they tipped off in December. He didn't speak entirely frankly about the potential of blowing up the Big Three, but he didn't talk with blind optimism about the team, either. He's less caustic than Danny -- I don't know, but listening to him talk makes me more confident that whatever decisions the front-office makes will be good ones.

* Line of the night, from Grousbeck, on Kendrick Perkins: "He's a great guy. He told us he wasn't gonna re-sign here, but he's a great guy."

Orlando will look to work out its frustation against Indiana on Tuesday night. They won't have to wait long for revenge, either; Boston travels to Florida on Thursday for the rematch. The Celtics are off until then, which hopefully will some of Boston's injured players a chance to get healthy. I've got a feeling we'll need them next time around.

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.

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.

Boston 100, Philadelphia 99

I picked a bad night to be busy. Ray Allen hits a game-winner and I missed it because I was busy with law school stuff.

[recap] [box score] [highlights]

You can look at the box score and highlights yourself. The one thing I want to say is that for those who have followed Paul Pierce's career, it's so refreshing to see him notch the game-winning assist. Not that he's an inherently selfish player; just that there was a time when everyone knew who was taking a last-second shot for Boston.

Nice screen by Glen Davis to free Ray, too. Davis had a double-double starting for Kevin Garnett, who missed his second straight game due to illness. I think I'd better get used to Davis over Powe in the lineup.

As alluded to at the end of the ESPN clip, above, Boston now owns the two longest winning streaks in the NBA this year; the 19-gamer that ended Christmas Day in Los Angeles, and this current 12-gamer. Our next game? Thursday night against those very same Lakers, at 8 p.m. on TNT. Actually, they aren't "those very same Lakers": They are of course without Andrew Bynum, though that didn't matter much against New York on Monday night - Kobe Bryant set the Madison Square Garden single-game scoring record by dropping 61 on the Knicks (highlights). I don't think the Lakers can beat us with Kobe dominating the ball like that - we're much better defensively than the Knicks. There's some speculation that Bryant went out and played the way he did because he felt responsible for Bynum's knee injury (Kobe fell on Bynum's leg, causing the torn MCL). It will be interesting to see if Kobe continues in the "I've gotta do everything" mindset, or reverts back to trusting his teammates like he did so well last year.

Speaking of Bynum, another contender suffered an injury loss that deals a serious blow to their title chances. Orlando Magic PG Jameer Nelson tore the labrum in his right shoulder after being fouled by Dallas' Erick Dampier Monday night. He may miss the rest of the season.

I' m not as high on Nelson as this guy is (scroll down to the comments section to see the friendly back and forth we had about Jameer) but this is obviously a big blow to Orlando, whose backup point guard is journeyman Anthony Johnson, and whose backup to Anthony Johnson is ... nobody. They've got to make a move, but whatever move they make, it won't compensate for the loss of Nelson. They should still win the Southeast (they currently have a nine-game lead on Atlanta), but barring similiar injuries in Cleveland or Boston, they are facing a second-round playoff series on the road. Pretty harsh for a team that's started 36-11.