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The Celtics rested everyone and got smoked by the Magic: 9 takeaways
No Jayson Tatum. No Jaylen Brown. No Kristaps Porzingis. No Derrick White. No Jrue Holiday. No Al Horford.Â
The Celtics were without all of their best players, and the Stay Ready group was not ready for the Magic, who clinched the No. 7 seed with a 96-76 win.
Here are the takeaways.
1. The Celtics rested everyone
No Jayson Tatum. No Jaylen Brown. No Kristaps Porzingis. No Derrick White. No Jrue Holiday. No Al Horford.
And appropriately, the Celtics had no chance against the Magic.
Sometimes Payton Pritchard goes wild in a game like this, taking the opportunity to have a huge performance in a larger role. But, he was relatively pedestrian — 15 points on 7-for-17 shots, although he did dish out 10 assists. Sam Hauser thrives when his opportunities are created by Tatum or Brown. Luke Kornet was pretty good, but he’s the WD-40 that makes a hinge swing smoothly, not the hinge itself.
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So the day after a dramatic and hard-fought win against a potential second-round opponent, the Celtics punted on a matchup with a potential first-round opponent, which made for an ugly watch.
Still, we’re here for you. If you spent your evening watching some other sporting event, here’s what you missed.
2. Baylor Scheierman threw some cool passes
Baylor Scheierman’s passing should not come as a surprise. In college, a big part of the NBA appeal was that he wasn’t just a shooter. He could also rebound, he could also handle a little bit, and most importantly, he played with the kind of swagger that an athlete develops when they are the superstar quarterback in a small Midwestern town.
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In any case, Scheierman threw a couple cool passes and continued to look like a potentially fun addition for the next few years.
3. Neemias Queta threw down the fourth-best dunk of the season
Using the extremely imperfect dunk score metric on NBA.com, the best Celtics dunk of the season previously belonged to Brown on Nov. 29, when he detonated against the Bulls with one hand.
On Wednesday, Neemias Queta bruised his way into the top five, earning a dunk score of 113.2 with a massive poster on Wendell Carter Jr.
Our take? The Queta dunk is great, but Brown’s was better. Hhe floated longer and threw it down directly over the defender (rather than Queta, who sort of bounced Carter to the side), and his “Strap In” celebration was better than Queta self-chest bumping on the basket stanchion.
Anyway, this has been your dunk analysis from a writer who can still sort of grab the rim. Credit to Queta for trying to tear the hoop off the stanchion.
4. Miles Norris scored his first Celtics bucket
It’s always cool when a player scores his first NBA basket. Miles Norris buried a 3-pointer with 1:08 left in the third quarter, which was his first field goal at the NBA level.
Norris played it off very cool — absolutely zero facial expression — but while the Celtics definitely shouldn’t be allowed to snag the game ball after losing by 20 and putting up a healthy 76 points, here’s hoping Norris saves his game shoes or something.
5. Luke Kornet hit a fadeaway jumper
Luke Kornet used to be a 3-point shooter, if you recall.
Kornet is so good for the Celtics because he stays so thoroughly entrenched in his role, which makes it kind of funny whenever he is forced to venture out of it. But Kornet is a talented basketball player who can do a surprising amount of things when he’s asked, including this Dirk Kornet-ski one-legged jumper.
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The NBC Sports Boston broadcast called Kornet’s celebration “mixing it up,” which might be right, but it looks to us a little more like he was opening a Ziploc bag and then putting together a fajita, which doesn’t make a ton of sense. You can judge for yourself.
6. Cole Anthony puked, and apparently it was pretty gross
After one play in the first half, Magic guard Cole Anthony pulled up under the hoop and appeared to be limping, but after a minute, the broadcast made it clear that he had actually yakked all over the floor.
The NBC Sports Boston broadcast declined to show Anthony puking, which is probably for the best. He went to the bench looking a little chagrined, which is not something you usually see from Anthony. He later returned to the game, and Abby Chin reported that he never went to the locker room, which presumably means he didn’t get any mouthwash, which is pretty gross, so – like NBC Sports Boston – let’s just move on.
7. The Celtics haven’t made many 3-pointers against the Magic this year
The Celtics were a ghastly 7-for-40 (17.5 percent) from behind the arc, which means that the disaster class against the Thunder in January is no longer their worst 3-point performance of the year.
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Incidentally, the Celtics’ fourth-worst percentage this year was also against the Magic: an 8-for-33 (24.2 percent) performance on Dec. 23.
That feels somewhat notable, given …
8. The Magic might be the first-round opponent
The Magic clinched the No. 7 seed, which means they will start the play-in tournament with home-court advantage. As things stand on Wednesday, the Hawks hold a one-game lead over both the Bulls and the Heat (and the Bulls had a double-digit lead over the Heat Wednesday evening).
If the Celtics play the Magic in the playoffs, one major takeaway from Wednesday is that it will be important that the Celtics are not without Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Al Horford.
9. The Celtics are headed home, then to the playoffs
The Celtics will now head home, looking for their 60th win of the season with two games remaining against the Hornets. After that, they will watch the play-in tournament with interest before embarking on their playoff journey, which will prominently feature at most two of their active players on Wednesday unless something goes very wrong.
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