After they squared off on Friday in NBA Cup group-stage play, the Orlando Magic host the Boston Celtics for the second time in as many games on Sunday.
Orlando extended Boston’s sluggish start to the 2025-26 season in Friday’s meeting, beating the Celtics in Eastern Conference Group B competition, 123-110. The loss was the Celtics’ third in their last four games and dropped the 2024 NBA champions to two games below .500.
Boston aims to regroup in Sunday’s rematch outside of the NBA Cup, which Jaylen Brown described as a continued opportunity for a team experiencing growing pains.
“We had a solid fight to this game (against) a very physical team,” Brown said following Friday’s loss. “I think we’re growing. I think we’re getting better. I’m liking what I’m seeing from certain guys, and that’s the most important thing.”
The Celtics have had to adjust through the initial weeks of the season without All-NBA leader Jayson Tatum, who is indefinitely sidelined with a torn Achilles’ tendon sustained in last spring’s playoffs.
Tatum’s 26.8 points per game a season ago paced Boston to 61 regular-season wins and the NBA’s eighth-most productive scoring offense at 116.3 points per game.
Brown has shouldered some of the lost scoring load 10 games in 2025-26, averaging 28.1 points per game, and 2024-25 Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard is adding 16.5 points per game moving into a starting role.
However, the Celtics’ team average of 113 points per game ranked just 23rd in the NBA entering Saturday’s play. In another matchup with Orlando, a team that has staked its identity on defense in coach Jamahl Mosley’s tenure, Boston will try to find more consistent scoring production.
The Magic are facing their own regression from a season ago, however, giving up 116.8 points per game in their first nine. That is a jump of 11.3 points per game from last season’s NBA-best defense.
“Never overreacted,” Mosley said of Orlando’s promising defensive effort Friday. “That’s going to be key going forward. Teams are going to go on runs (in) a 48-minute game. There are a few things that happened within that game, but our guys’ ability to keep their poise, keep their focus, communicate the way they were in those huddles, I think those are going to be key for this group.”
Since going on a four-game losing streak in which it surrendered 123 points per game, Orlando has won three of four with a 103.7-point per game yield in the victories.
The Magic complemented Friday’s defensive showing, which saw Orlando hold Boston to 43-of-95 (45.3%) shooting from the floor, with balanced offense. Seven scorers, including all five Magic starters, reached double-figures, led by Franz Wagner’s 27 points.
For the season, Wagner (22.6 points per game) and Paolo Banchero (22.2) are leading Orlando in scoring with five other players scoring between 11 and 14.8 points per game in at least seven appearances.
Desmond Bane, averaging 14.8 points per game, finished with 22 points on Friday.
–Field Level Media
