Celtics Come Out Flat - Lose to Orlando 87-79

Tonight the Celtics were outplayed by the Magic and came away with an 87 -79 loss. The Magic at times seemed as though they were willing to let the Celtics take the game but we couldn’t capitalize on their miscues. The Magic turned the ball over 23 times but the Celtics turned it over 17 times. The Magic shot 38% from the field but the Celtics shot 32%. The Magic had 15 assists for the game but the Celtics had only 9. It was a case of “anything you can do, we can do worse.”

The biggest difference in this game was the rebounding. The Magic out rebounded the Celtics 51 to 31 and that made a big difference in the game. With as poorly as the Celtics were shooting, it was 1 and done when they shot while the Magic got 2nd and 3rd chance baskets. I really have to wonder why Doc didn’t give Powe a chance tonight. Every time this kid gets a chance, he plays well and makes good things happen. We desperately needed inside defense and rebounding along with energy and toughness inside and Powe brings all of those things. Yet he racked up another DNP. Even Kandi got 3 uneventful minutes tonight. I just don’t understand why he doesn’t get to play at all. It doesn’t make sense to me.

It wasn’t all bad tonight though. Tony Allen had another stellar game. He scored 21 points on 7-14 shooting and was 1-2 from beyond the arc. He also pulled down 9 rebounds and had 3 assists along and 1 block to go with an astounding 7 steals. He did have 6 turnovers also, but he played hard the entire game and was in every play on both ends of the court.

The high points of the game stop there though. Wally fell back into his shooting slump and was 4-15 for 15 points with no rebounds or assists. West shot 3-9 from the field for 13 points to go with 2 rebounds and 3 assists. Green was only 2-8 for 4 points with 1 rebound and 1 steal. He did have a pretty fly by dunk of a miss at one point. Telfair was 1-3 from the field with 2 rebounds and 1 assist. Rondo had a 57 second cameo appearance.

Al was 5-8 from the field for 12 points to go with 7 rebounds and 2 blocks. Perk was only 1-8 from the field and seemed to rush his shots instead of taking his time as he did in the Memphis game. He finished with 4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, and 3 blocks. Gomes played only 5 minutes and never returned after the first quarter due to a stomach bug. Scal was 0-6 from the field and finished with 4 points and 3 rebounds.

All in all it was a very lackluster performance. As good as they looked on Friday, that is as bad as they looked tonight. Our offense was very flat and no one was hitting their shots outside of Al and Tony. Our defense was decent in the second half but the first half we lacked energy on both ends of the floor. We have off until Wednesday and hopefully they can get in some practice and watch some film and will learn from their mistakes. There sure were a lot of them to learn from.

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