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All the Orlando Magic can do is keep fighting, keep swinging, keep elbowing, keep pushing, keep prodding, keep trying to do anything possible to turn this series against the Boston Celtics into a basketball bar fight instead of a basketball ballet.
The Magic simply don’t have the firepower, the experience, the depth or the pedigree of the defending champions, and so they must rely on being as relentlessly physical as desperation (and the referees) will allow.
In the NBA playoffs, massive underdogs don’t usually win by playing pretty. They win by making things ugly — and for the Magic, that’s not just strategy; it’s survival. The Magic need to make this series uglier and smellier than a gas station bathroom at 3 a.m.
Boston won Game 2 Wednesday night 109-100, but even though Orlando is down 2-0 in the series, the Magic have left their mark — literally. Two of Boston’s premier players — All-NBA star Jayson Tatum and 7-foot-2 unicorn Kristaps Porzingis — have felt the wrath of the Magic’s physicality and aggression.
The Celtics won Game 2 without Tatum, who sat out with an injured wrist after falling awkwardly in Game 1 following a hard foul from Magic guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. That foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 1, though many, including the TV broadcasters and Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, questioned whether the foul truly crossed the line.
“I didn’t see it as a flagrant,” Mosley said at shootaround before Game 2. “Two guys were going for the block and I think it was just the fall that was probably what set it off more than anything.”
The intensity didn’t let up, evidenced by Porzingis getting a bloody gash on his head after taking a wild swinging elbow from Orlando’s Goga Bitadze — a play that also earned a flagrant. Meanwhile, big man Wendell Carter Jr. was knocked woozy by an elbow to the face from Boston’s Al Horford. It felt more like a back-alley brawl than a basketball game at times, which is just the way Orlando wants it.
Give the Celtics credit; they aren’t backing down. When Porzingis exited the game with blood streaming down his face, he returned with his head stitched and bandaged. The crowd roared its approval and Porzingis finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
“We’re not going to let anybody punk us,” Porzingis said. “And we expect teams to be doing this kind of stuff, to get in our heads, to try to provoke us, to try to maybe get some reaction out of us, some technical [foul] maybe. It’s an emotional game, obviously, so we weren’t surprised, but we’re just not going to take it. So we’re going to hit them right back.”
This strategy is the only real shot the Magic have against the defending champion Celtics, who are the most prolific 3-point shooting team in NBA history. Orlando can’t match Boston’s talent or firepower. They can’t outshoot the Celtics, outrun them or finesse their way into a win. But they can bully, bruise, batter and make every possession feel like a root canal.
For a half in Game 1, they did exactly that, even leading the Celtics at halftime. They forced missed shots, disrupted rhythm and made the game chaotic — until Boston overwhelmed them with a barrage of second-half 3-pointers and pulled away.
The same thing happened in Game 2. The Celtics tried to pull away in the first half, but Orlando came back. The Celtics tried to pull away again in the second half, but the Magic kept swinging, swiping, hacking, harassing and refusing to be knocked out.
This is why the uproar over Caldwell-Pope’s foul on Tatum feels more like a reaction to the Magic’s audacity rather than actual malice. It was Boston’s players and fans essentially saying, “How dare you?” rather than “That was dirty!”
The Celtics know that this is just playoff basketball. Believe me, if a team with more playoff pedigree — say the Heat or the Bucks — played with this aggression, it would be called grittiness, not goonery. Because it’s the upstart Magic, they’re painted as reckless.
That’s disrespect.
Plain and simple.
The Magic aren’t trying to injure anyone. They’re trying to compete. They’re trying to find a foothold in a series where they’re the clear underdog. And if that means making things uncomfortable, then that’s what they have to do.
The Magic’s offensive shortcomings don’t leave them much choice. They scored 86 points in Game 1 and were barely able to reach 100 points during mop-up time in Game 2. They’re the worst 3-point shooting team in the league, and that ineptitude continued. The Magic hit just 24% from distance with Caldwell-Pope (0-for-6) and Franz Wagner (1 of 7) struggling the most.
Wagner did finish with 25 points to complement Paolo Banchero, who scored 32 points and has posted 30-plus points in his last three playoff games — each of them losses. It has to be maddening for the young star to carry that kind of load and come up empty.
And now Paolo and the Magic face a daunting reality. Teams that fall behind 2-0 in a best-of-7 series go on to lose 93% of the time.
The fact is nobody expected the Magic to win this series from the beginning, but that doesn’t mean they have to bow out quietly. They return home for Game 3 Friday night and must keep punching the Celtics in the nose — figuratively speaking, of course — with every screen, every rebound and every contested shot. If they can do that, maybe they can turn Kia Center into a cauldron of frustration for the Celtics instead of a Boston Three Party.
The truth is, Boston doesn’t like to be uncomfortable. They like to shoot. They like to run. They like to win pretty. The Magic have to make sure nothing about this series is pretty.
Whether it’s labeled as gritty or dirty, physical or flagrant, it doesn’t matter. Orlando has no reason to apologize. The Magic might be underdogs, but they’re not here to be polite. They’re here to fight.
And the uglier the fight is, the better it is for Orlando.
Even if the Magic don’t win this series, let’s hope they at least leave some bruises, some doubts and a few rattled champions in their wake.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
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