On Monday, the Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics engaged in another one of their memorable battles. In recent years, whenever the Magic and Celtics go toe-to-toe with each other, fans are — more often than not — treated to a great game.
Head coach Stan Van Gundy and Doc Rivers are two of the better coaches in the NBA — master tacticians with their respective teams. Plus, the different personalities and star power make things interesting on and off the court.
General manager Otis Smith has gotten a lot of flack recently, saying that Boston acts tough but isn’t really tough. And Glen Davis made heads turned when he said that Dwight Howard was a finesse player. Needless to say, these are two franchises with people that aren’t afraid to speak their mind. But rather delve deeper in psychological warfare, it makes more sense to revisit an epic fourth quarter that saw two Eastern Conference heavyweights trade haymakers with each other. This time around, Orlando lost the battle but it was surely entertaining to watch.
For the last five minutes of the game, the Magic and Celtics traded jabs, uppercuts, you name it, before Paul Pierce put things to rest with a go-ahead jumper with 38 seconds left in the game. Despite that, one of the encouraging things that Orlando can take away from the loss is the crunch-time abilities of Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu. Richardson, especially, has not been afraid to take — and make — big shots for the Magic since he arrived in late December. For whatever reason, Richardson becomes laser-focused during the clutch. Same with Turkoglu.
Watch.