Franz Wagner broke a late tie with consecutive driving hoops over Kristaps Porzingis, and the Orlando Magic, riding a suffocating defense and surviving a wild finish, held off the visiting Boston Celtics 95-93 in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series Friday night.
Wagner finished with a team-high 32 points and Paolo Banchero 29 for the Magic, who held serve at home after losing the first two games of the best-of-seven series in Boston. Game 4 also will be played at Orlando on Sunday.
“It was a great team effort,” Banchero said. “We knew it was going to be a helluva game. Being at home, we wanted to get the win and have a chance to tie it up 2-2.”
After Boston, which led most of the way, rallied from a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 91-91 on a Derrick White layup with 2:31 left, Wagner hit one layup with 2:13 remaining and another with 1:26 to go, putting the hosts up four.
The Celtics got back within two on a White dunk with 28.1 seconds remaining and then appeared to get a turnover when an eight-second backcourt violation was called on the Magic. But the referees conferred and decided that Orlando had in fact advanced past the midcourt line in time and gave the ball back to the Magic.
Wagner then missed a 3-pointer but by the time the Celtics were able to retrieve the miss and call a timeout, only three-tenths of a second were left on the clock. Boston was relegated to a long lob pass on an inbounds play that was broken up.
“I thought we showed a lot of character,” Wagner said. “We stuck together and found a way to win the game.”
A game-time decision after having missed Game 2 with a sore right wrist, Jayson Tatum exploded for 21 points in the first half then added a 3-pointer on Boston’s first possession of the third period to give the visitors a 62-51 lead. But the Celtics added just eight more points in the period and found themselves in a 73-70 hole by period’s end.
“I thought our defense in the third won us the game,” Banchero said. “We showed a lot of poise in that third, and we rebounded the ball better.”
When Wagner opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer and Banchero chipped in with six points shortly thereafter, the Magic lead expanded to 86-74 before Boston made its late push.
Wagner also found time for seven rebounds and a game-high eight assists, while Wendell Carter Jr. had a 10-point, 12-rebound double-double for the Magic, who held the Celtics to 21 points over a 17-minute stretch of the second half.
Tatum had a game-high 36 points and a team-high nine rebounds for the Celtics, but also seven of the team’s 21 turnovers. Jaylen Brown chipped in with 19 points and White 16 to go with a team-high five assists for Boston, which also lost both its regular-season games at Orlando.
“We were at their place,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “They’re out there pressuring. The physicality … we could do a better job of play-calling, getting us in the right spots. We could do a better job at the point of attack. We could do a better job finishing. We just have to do a better job with our offensive physicality.”
The Celtics played without defensive ace Jrue Holiday, a late scratch with a strained right hamstring.
–Field Level Media
