Inside the 2nd Half Turnaround That Won Game 3 for Magic vs. Celtics

ORLANDO, Fla. – On a normal night, the Orlando Magic follow a halftime routine that includes a quick film review and discussion of adjustments before heading back out to the court for the second half.

Friday night, however, was not a normal night.

Backed against the wall down 2-0 in its best-of-seven, first-round playoff series with the second-seeded Boston Celtics, Orlando surrendered a 19-5 run over the final six minutes of the first half. Suddenly, the Magic found themselves down 10 as the buzzer sounded for intermission of a pivotal Game 3.

Facing the largest halftime deficit of the series, Mosley made a different type of change.

"[Mosley] said no film at the half," center Wendell Carter Jr. said Friday. "He said it was just as simple as nutting up and figuring it out on the defensive end."

Orlando couldn't afford to get down on itself, something the tenured Magic big says his youthful, still-growing team struggles with. However, the Magic also didn't need reminding of what was at stake.

"We also understood no team comes back from a 3-0 [series deficit] ever in history," Carter said. "We had to find a way to change the trajectory of this game."

"You didn’t have to think about a lot of adjustments in that moment," Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. "It was about digging in and understanding where we were and how we needed to play."

That they did.

After shooting 55 percent through 24 minutes, Jayson Tatum drilled a three on the Celtics' first possession out of halftime, looking to pick up where he left off after a scorching-hot 21-point first half.

It turned out to be an anomaly in the quarter. Boston's potent offense met a much stiffer challenge from the Magic's physical defense, who held the Celtics to 3-17 from the field in the third quarter. Orlando opened the frame on a 16-3 run, forced six of the Celtics' season-high 21 giveaways and held them to 11 total points in the quarter – Boston's lowest scoring quarter since November 2021.

"I thought they obviously upped their ball pressure at the point of attack, full court and the half court," Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said postgame. "Credit to them with their defensive physicality."

"We came out of the locker room locked in," Paolo Banchero (29 points, six rebounds, two steals) said postgame. "Going down 10 at half, cutting into that lead right away was big."

Orlando won the third 24-11 and took a lead into the fourth quarter, albeit just a slim three-point advantage, for the first time in the series.

"We came out and moved the basketball, attacked the rim, sat down and got stops, forced them into some tough twos, but we were able to turn them over as well," Mosley said. "I think that was a big key in the game.”

After 59 points and an offensive rating of 120.4 in the first half, Boston scored just 34 points and was limited to an 81.0 offensive rating over the last 24 minutes. The Magic, minus-6 on the glass in the first half, were plus-9 after halftime.

And, Orlando held the Celtics to 2-13 from three after the defending champions shot 7-14 on treys in the first half. Boston's 27 three-point attempts were the fewest in a single game this year.

"They thrive on threes, they thrive on finding mismatches," Mosley said. "They found a couple, but our guys are going to sit down and guard, and that's what we've challenged them to do. If you can sit down and guard your yard, you've done your job."

By pushing in all of its chips, Orlando won its first game in the series, a crucial 95-93 Game 3 victory.

“I thought our defense, especially in the third, won us the game," Franz Wagner (32 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, two steals) said. "It took a lot of poise in that third to hold a really good team to 11 points.”

Banchero and Wagner, as they have been all series, were Orlando's top dogs in the win. But when they needed scoring help, supporting cast members, like Carter, stepped up in the second half.

Carter logged a 10-point, 12-rebound double-double, where all of his scoring came in the second half and six of his 12 boards came on the offensive glass.

"I had to find a way to affect the game," Carter said. "Defensively, I wasn't doing my best job in terms of playing one-on-one defense, then offensively, I had to find a way to get my own. [Friday night] was crashing offensive boards, so I just put my hard hat on and did what I could to help this team win."

"We knew coming back down 0-2, we were going to have to do whatever we could to get this game and give ourselves a chance to tie [the series at] 2-2," Banchero said.

They'll look take the same whatever-it-takes attitude that propelled them through Game 3 into Sunday's Game 4.

But the Magic proved Friday they're more than just the welcome mat to another hopeful deep playoff run for Boston.

Up Next

Orlando hosts Boston in Game 4 on Sunday, April 27, at 7 p.m. on TNT.

To see the full series schedule, click here.

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