The Orlando Magic defeated the Boston Celtics 105-103 in front of a sell out crowd of oner 18,000 fad at Amway Center last night.
The Magic, fresh off of a 1-5 road trip that included four straight losses, many of them after holding a double digit lead, came out and fought aggressively for this win against one of the NBA Eastern Conference’s top teams.
Terrance Ross and Aaron Gordon were the key forces in last night’s win. Gordon scored 28points and 12 rebounds, while Ross was on fire in the fourth quarter with 9 points in the fourth and ended up with 25 points and willed the Magic to the win.
“I think that we had a better purpose of play tonight,” said Gordon, whose 13 first-half points were instrumental in helping the Magic stay close. “I think that we knew what we were doing and where we wanted our buckets to come from, whether it was Evan Fournier , Vooch (Nikola Vucevic) or T-Ross. We were getting to the [free-throw] line. We understood where we needed to score, at what time, and we just kept chipping away.”
Vicevic is a request top scorer for the Magic, but the Celtics strategy was to remove him as a factor in the game. When the ball went into his hands, the Celtics pounced on him, collapsing the defense on him and trying to make him ineffective.
Vucevic still managed to score 16 points and grab 13 rebounds in the game.
The Magic managed to stick around through the fourth quarter. In this game, there wasn’t the usual large lead, though the Celtics tit manage to go up 10 points in their largest lead.
Ross and Gordon then combined for 14 points in a 19-4 fourth-quarter run that regained a seven-point lead for Orlando with 5:57 remaining.
The Celtics managed to chip away at the lead, bringing them to within 2 points. Jayson Tatum missed a jumper at the buzzer that would have tied it for the Celtics, who charged back from a nine-point deficit in the final 1:43 before losing to the Magic for the second time this season.
Kyrie Irving scored 25 points to lead the Celtics, who put six players in double figures but lost a second straight road game in Florida. They fell 115-99 on Thursday to the Heat.
Marcus Morris finished with 17 points, Jayson Tatum had 16, Jaylen Brown had 13 and Al Horford and Marcus Smart each had 10 for Boston (25-17).
The Magic face the Houston Rockets on Sunday at the Amway Center, and then they head up to Brooklyn to face the Brooklyn Nets on Monday
