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Magic 100, Celtics 95: Nelson nearly rallies Boston

ESPNBOSTON

By Chris Forsberg | ESPNBoston.com

The Boston Celtics nearly rallied all the way back from a 25-point fourth-quarter deficit but the Orlando Magic held on for a 100-95 triumph on Tuesday night at the Amway Center.

The Celtics got a spark from newcomer Jameer Nelson and the 32-year-old point guard nearly willed Boston back from what seemed like an insurmountable deficit against one of his former teams.

Boston clawed within three (90-87) with 2:34. The Magic called their final timeout and Tobias Harris hit a fadeaway jumper that stopped the bleeding and helped Orlando hang on.

The Celtics trailed by as much as 27 early in the fourth quarter but former Magic players Nelson and Brandon Bass helped activate the rally. Boston was down 18 (90-72) with 7:24 to go, but scored the game's next 15 points, culminating with a Kelly Olynyk 3-pointer to make it a one-possession game.

Boston got within three again with 22 seconds to play, but Orlando did enough to hang on.

Nelson finished with 9 points, 11 assists, and 4 rebounds over 29:45 while starting at point guard. Center Tyler Zeller had another big night (22 points, 10 rebounds) while guard Avery Bradley added 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting.

• First-quarter woes: The Celtics finished the first half shooting just 9.1 percent (2 of 22) and were staring at a 26-9 deficit after the first 12 minutes. Even with the fourth-quarter surge, Boston shot just 38.8 percent overall (33 of 85).

• Sully benched: Jared Sullinger did not play in the second half and was replaced by Olynyk at the start of the third quarter. Sullinger missed all five shots he took while going scoreless with two rebounds over only 9 minutes, 10 seconds of playing time.

• Loose balls: Celtics coach Brad Stevens went 11 deep with his rotation. Gerald Wallace was a healthy DNP. ... Recently acquired Jae Crowder played 10:35, but was on the court for much of the rally. He was a team-best plus-18 in plus/minus. ... Brandan Wright had five points on 2-of-4 shooting over 12:42. ... The Celtics shot 29 free throws with Zeller going 10-for-10 at the stripe. ... The game featured 0 lead changes as the Magic led from start to finish.

• What it means: Boston falls to 10-16, while Orlando moves to 11-20. ... The Celtics get a little Christmas rest before hosting the Brooklyn Nets in a Friday matinee at TD Garden.
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Celtics rally comes up short in 100-95 loss to Magic

CSNE

A. SHERROD BLAKLEY

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Orlando Magic managed to survive a furious fourth quarter rally by the Boston Celtics that ended in a 100-95 Magic win.

Boston (10-17) trailed by as many as 27 points in the game and went into the fourth quarter down 85-60.

It was the kind of margin that made the outcome inevitable, right?

Here's the thing.

Somebody forgot to tell the Celtics, as they mounted one of the most impressive fourth quarter flurries we have seen this season.

Down 25 points to start the fourth, Boston came within 90-87 following a Kelly Olynyk 3-pointer with 2:33 to play.

Following an Orlando time-out, not only did that stop the game clock but also any momentum the Celtics had in the game as they were unable to close the gap.

Tyler Zeller had another big game for the Green team, finishing with a team-high 22 points to go with 10 rebounds. In addition to Olynyk (14 points), Boston also got a strong game from Avery Bradley (20 points) and Jameer Nelson (9 points, 11 assists, four rebounds) who made his first start of the season.

Orlando's frontline did significant damage as Tobias Harris (19 points), Kyle O'Quinn (18 points, 13 rebounds) and Nikola Vucevic (18 points, 12 rebounds) all had big games.

WHAT WORKED

Boston played with the kind of desperation in the fourth quarter that was void throughout most of the game. We have seen Boston make late-game rallies that come up short before, but this one stood out simply because there was not the one or two hot-hands leading the way.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

Orlando had way too much success inside the paint, and it wasn't just Nikola Vucevic causing problems, either. For the game, Boston was outscored 50-40 on points in the paint.

KEY PLAY/STRETCH: A Kelly Olynyk 3-pointer with 2:33 to play brought the Celtics within 90-87 after having trailed by 25 points to start the fourth quarter. Orlando called a time-out and out of the time-out, Tobias Harris shot a fadeaway shot that hit the front of the rim, took a friendly bounce and went in. Had that shot missed and the Celtics got the rebound, this game could have easily had a very different outcome.

112288

BAH HUMBUG!


112288

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/gamecast?gameId=400578710&version=mobile&date=20141223&groupId=7


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Hey Bob....Something is up with Sully being benched in the second half.........could a trade be in the works for him? He has not been happy for a few weeks and not playing with purpose.


112288

112288 wrote:Hey Bob....Something is up with Sully being benched in the second half.........could a trade be in the works for him?  He has not been happy for a few weeks and not playing with purpose.


112288

112288,

I hope not, but if that's the case then somebody else is going with him because I cannot think of any player that I would trade Sully for straight-up and have the salaries match.


bob



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112288 wrote:Hey Bob....Something is up with Sully being benched in the second half.........could a trade be in the works for him?  He has not been happy for a few weeks and not playing with purpose.


112288

112288,

I just saw an article by Blakely in which he said both Sully AND Green sat the entire 4th quarter. Maybe it was them having a bad game and Brad wanted to try something else? Then again, Jeff Green trade rumors have been swirling too...



bob



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I don't know guys.  The Assist/FGM number post-trade is locking in on 2/3.  It's not Rondo, but it's awful close.  JN, short of a few rebounds, appears to be saying he can pick up the PG slack.  4 Steals.  Nice.  

Zeller's 10-10 FT's ain't too shabby either.

Sam, I'll keep my eye out for a glimmer with Assist/FGM.

db

Playing Nelson so much, has me thinking they are "showcasing" him for a trade to a playoff team looking for a BU point.

IF playing Nelson has been "sent down" to the coaching staff, then playing Wright and Crowder with him makes some sense early at least.

I could be very wrong on this of course.

we also simply have a glut of NBA players at the marginal starter/ back up skill level right now, because of the Rondo trade.

all Three players we got back fit that role and we already had 8 players at that level.

11 guys is simply too many to play most games. Stevens needs to find his rotation and stick with them, IMO. BUT he may not be able to do that until AFTER the trade deadline this year.

as to this thread, I don't think ANYONE of off limits as far a Ainge is concerned right now .

If Ainge gets a deal that he feels will move the team forward in the future . he will do it.

kdp59 wrote:Playing Nelson so much, has me thinking they are "showcasing" him for a trade to a playoff team looking for a BU point.

IF playing Nelson has been "sent down" to the coaching staff, then playing Wright and Crowder with him makes some sense early at least.

I could be very wrong on this of course.

we also simply have a glut of NBA players at the marginal starter/ back up skill level right now, because of the Rondo trade.

all Three players we got back fit that role and we already had 8 players at that level.

11 guys is simply too many to play most games. Stevens needs to find his rotation and stick with them, IMO. BUT he may not be able to do that until AFTER the trade deadline this year.

as to this thread, I don't think ANYONE of off limits as far a Ainge is concerned right now .

If Ainge gets a deal that he feels will move the team forward in the future . he will do it.

Kdp,

I don't think they are "showcasing" Nelson if for no other reason he is an 11 year veteran and is a known quantity for better or worse. He might have gotten the start because it was a homecoming of sorts for him, because he is the veteran PG now and/or because Smart's ankle still isn't 100%.

Wright might be getting showcased but maybe not. He may be the lively body shot blocker we're looking for. His /minute stats are awesome, maybe they want to see if he can keep them up with more minutes.

I don't think Crowder is being showcased if for no other reason that he's not on any GM's radar enough for it to move the needle. Jeff Green sat the 4th quarter, as did Sully, because they were having bad games.

I don't see Danny telling his coaches who to play and how much. Doc trained him well.

Brad might have just wanted to see what his newbies can do and, with Sully and Green having off nights, it seemed like a good opportunity.


bob


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Hi,
I don't know about Sully and JG but what I do know that if the Celtics Motor clicks on all cylinders like it did in the 4th quarter we'll be in the playoffs.
At the end of the 3rd and in the 4th Celtics looked like coherent unit. As if there're only a couple pieces of puzzle left to fit but you already know exactly where. I hope it's not a fluke, the trend's going to continue.
Zeller is da man at 5. I can only imagine what Cavs are thinking now, in the light of the latest AV's injury.

AK

If Zeller can become a little more stronger and a bit meaner, you got your next starting rim protector.

112288

Sorry, but I do not for one second believe this game was as close as the final score indicates. This was a pretty bad game from the start. The comeback was mostly a result of Orlando being a thoroughly terrible team.

The offense does not look very good. The C's shot 7-23 from the 3-point arc, a measly 30.4%, and overall shot 38.8% from the field. Orlando shot 47%, including a not-so-abysmal 38.7% from three. All but one of Orlando's starters shot 50% or better from the field. So, I think it's safe to say the defense needs a good bit of work.



KJ

This game was a perfect example of the wide swings in performance can be encountered by a team early in its development. When players on rebuilding team become used to one another, they can usually maximize their performance each night. That maximum performance may or may not be sufficient to win games on a consistent basis, but at least those wide performance swings are held to a minimum. That's when a general manager and coach know that talent, not chemistry, is the problem that most needs to be addressed.

If Sully and/or Green had been held out of the fourth quarter because they were being traded, we would have heard about the trade(s), or at least the rumor(s) by now.

Showcasing is a concept alluded to mostly by fans whenever a player gets more minutes than usual; it's vastly overrated in terms of what teams actually do. The reality is that, given the number of phone calls Danny usually fields, if the Celtics subscribed to a showcasing concept, they'd have to showcase the majority of players on the team in every game. That would be a mathematical impossibility, to say nothing of the fact that the incessant discontinuity it would cause would probably show the players off to worst—not best—advantage.

Moreover, simply to insert a player in order to showcase him is no assurance that he's suddenly going to jump tall building in single bounds just because he's being showcased (which he may not know anyway, so why try harder than usual?). He could just as easily lay such a a showcasing egg that other teams would want to trade for him only if they're raising poultry.

The likelihood is that Brad was pretty disgusted with what his starters were not giving him, especially because they had played so well together in the previous game. He may have been most disgusted with Sully and Green.

Anyway, I think Brad showed some creativity in saying to himself, "Instead of putting myself at a disadvantage because the new guys haven't integrated yet, why don't I put myself at an advantage by playing the new guys together because they know each other so well?

Then, when stuff started going a lot better, why would he take those guys out? Brad has demonstrated a tendency to go with what's working. In his post-game comments, he wound up giving props to the new guys and especially to Crowder, who scored only two points, because Crowder was such a defensive disruptor; and it was specifically the defense. And he cut short his comments on the first half, obviously not wanting to reveal how truly anger he was. Being outscored 26-9 in the first quarter by the Mousekateers just might have been the reason.

This was the first game in which Jeff Green hasn’t reached double figures in scoring; and he had 25 minutes on the floor. We’ll probably hear more about why Sully played only 9 minutes. I have those guys down as being possible building blocks for the Celtics’ future, although I don’t know whether it will be in starting positions. But they looked more like Tinker Toys than building blocks last night.

Zeller (22/10) and Kelly (14/ showed some life. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Jameer Nelson. It wasn’t just his number of assists (11) that I liked. It was the full range of assist type, from crafty inside passes to timely passers out to the perimeter. Anything above 60% in terms of assisted field goals is very good, and the Celts were at 67%. The problem was that only Zeller and Bradley hit at least half their shots while taking more than 4 shots. Turner was a grotesque 1-6, and it’s easy to see why Brad preferred to try Crowder in the fourth rather than to play Smart, who failed to take even one field goal attempt and missed 4 of 7 freebies in his 17 minutes.

Bass came on late, and he helped the bench to be a collective +2 for the game, while the starters went -7. It was as though most of the Celts had hit the punch bowl a couple of days early.

Onward to the next one. Go Celtics!

Sam