Celtics-Magic: Where Stars Fail

ESPN’s John Hollinger called last night’s Celtics-Magic “one of the most depressing games I’ve ever seen,” despite a great fourth-quarter comeback. Dig a little deeper, though, and you can understand how Hollinger arrived at his conclusion. At the end of the game, the stars didn’t show up.

For the Celtics, Kevin Garnett limped around on one knee and practically ushered Rashard Lewis to the basket on Orlando’s game-winning play. As Hollinger writes:

From Boston’s end, Garnett was invisible, and not just with his defense on the final play. He finished with six points and seven rebounds in 33 minutes and twice failed to finish alley-oop plays at the basket. On the crucial play against Lewis he played his customary in-your-grill defense, only he lacked the dexterity to stay in front of him on the drive — a recurring pattern during Orlando’s second-half comeback.

Garnett claimed nothing was wrong physically, but he always does that. His play kind of says otherwise. As SB Nation’s Celtics Blog writes, “Here we go again.”

Meanwhile, the Magic got back into the game while getting nothing from their all-star backcourt of Jameer Nelson and Vince Carter. Carter shot 2-13 and scored just six points, but it was somehow even worse than that, as SB Nation’s Orlando Pinstriped Post writes:

Carter was also conspicuously absent for much of the 4th quarter, and apparently with good reason. When finally subbed in for the first time, he could not drive by the considerably slower, heavier Wallace, who managed to poke the ball away for a turnover. Rondo dove onto the ball and called timeout, which prompted the Amway Arena crowd to boo Carter. He finished with 6 points on 2-of-13 shooting, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 turnovers. The improved decision-making he displayed in last week’s games must have been a mirage, because he didn’t look like a very willing passer tonight. I estimate he missed Gortat on an open roll to the rim at least 3 times tonight, with each instead resulting in a contested, off-balance look for Carter. Another game to forget for Orlando’s highest-paid player and nominal “go-to guy,” who became a mere spectator as Orlando went to Howard and Lewis down the stretch.

But there’s another point: with the game on the line, Van Gundy called upon Williams, and not the starter Jameer Nelson, to run the show. Again, it proved to be a solid move. Williams hit two three-pointers in the fourth quarter, pushed the tempo when appropriate, and generally didn’t screw up. Nelson didn’t have a bad game by any means—his 10-point burst to bail out a flagging Magic offense in the first quarter looks pretty important in retrospect—but Williams was at the helm when Orlando made the game competitive again, and Van Gundy trusted him to keep it going. At times, notably with Lewis and Ryan Anderson, Van Gundy will go with the player with the better track record as opposed to the one actually playing better now, what Eddy’s magicfanintn’s termed the “reputation vs. production” approach. Tonight, Van Gundy did something different by sticking with the veteran over the recent All-Star. Nelson did see the floor in the 4th quarter, but only to defend three-point marksman Eddie House on the Celtics’ final possession.

The end result is that the Magic leave what should have been a statement win for them with more questions than answers. What does it say about the Magic as a team that they play best with Jason Williams and J.J. Redick in the backcourt? Can Stan Van Gundy really cut the minutes of his two backcourt all-stars? Were those pundits who said the Magic’s chemistry would suffer with the loss of Hedo Turkoglu actually right? Time is running out for the Magic to silence these questions.