BOSTON — Because of course they did.
How did the Boston Celtics, down their top eight rotation guys, take down the Orlando Magic, a team fighting to stay out of the play-in tournament?
How did Luka Garza, Baylor Scheierman, and Ron Harper Jr. — who was on a two-way contract at the beginning of the year — combine to score 84 points, leading a group of eight available players?
How did the Celtics win with a closing lineup of Garza (minimum contract in free agency this past summer), Scheierman (No. 30 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft), Jordan Walsh (second-round pick in 2023), John Tonje (two-way rookie who was a cap gymnastics throw-in in the Chris Boucher trade), and Dalano Banton, who signed a standard deal with the Celtics on Saturday?
Because, of course, they did.
“Today is kind of the perfect example of just our locker room, and the group of guys that we have, and how important it is that everybody knows that, if you’re on the floor, you’re expected to play a certain way to put us in position to win, and the guys did that tonight,” Joe Mazzulla said.
This is what the Celtics have done all season. In reality, nobody should be surprised at Sunday’s result.
Anyone who hasn’t watched Boston basketball this season may check the box score in awe — “How did that happen?” — when, in reality, it’s happened all season.
Nobody expected the Celtics to be a playoff team this year. Except for the Celtics, that is.
And when the injury report came out on Saturday night, nobody expected the Celtics’ win total to surpass 55. Again, except for the Celtics.
In a year of defying the odds, you could not have written a better regular-season finale script.
Boston kept things close throughout the first half. Their sluggish offense was just barely lifted up by a hard-nosed defense that stifled Orlando’s stars. Paolo Banchero finished the game shooting 7-of-22. Franz Wagner shot 7-of-18.
Then, the third quarter came around. And that’s when everything changed.
The Celtics’ offense exploded, pouring in nine triples (shooting 9-of-16 from 3-point land). Scheierman led the charge, scoring 14 third-quarter points.
His shot-making sent TD Garden into a frenzy, highlighted by the second-most jaw-dropping bucket of the evening.
Everything that came out of Scheierman’s hands turned to gold in the third. Harper chipped in, too, scoring 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting in the frame. Boston outscored Orlando 42-20, taking a 94-81 lead into the fourth.
But the Magic weren’t going to walk out of TD Garden without a fight.
Slowly but surely, the magical wave of basketball Boston played in the third quarter faded away. Left in its place was the reality of the situation at hand: Bench mob vs. starters on a (almost) playoff team.
Missed shots quickly turned into transition opportunities for the Magic. Twice, the Celtics missed big-time clutch threes that turned into threes for the Magic on the other end.
“If you take a look at it, the reason why Orlando got back in the game is because we had live-ball turnovers for transition, and we put them at the free-throw line,” Mazzulla said. “It’s no different than every other game.”
At one point, it seemed as though all the work Boston did in the third quarter was going to go to waste. With 36 seconds to go, Tonje missed a three, and Jalen Suggs nailed one on the other end to tie the game at 108. It was one of those aforementioned swings. A dagger to the heart of every Celtics fan in attendance.
But remember how Scheierman’s high-flying triple was the second-most jaw-dropping shot of the night? Well, that’s because of what Garza did after that Suggs bucket.
Boston tried to inbound the ball, but it was tipped. That threw the Celtics out of rhythm.
“Very rarely, you’re in a situation like that,” Mazzulla said. “One timeout, 35 seconds. Do you get the two-for-one? Do you wait and hold it for you? And so, we thought the two-for-one was more important at that time, but there was a deflection, so [you] can’t use another one.”
The Celtics knew they wanted to get up a quick shot so they could get the two-for-one and have the final shot of the night. They knew they wanted the ball in Garza’s hands.
They didn’t know what would happen next.
Garza caught the ball high above Wendell Carter Jr.‘s head, pulled up, and let a contested three fly from the wing.
In the words of Scheierman: “Chicken.”
“I mean, honestly, I was like, ‘Yeet.’ He just yeeted that thing up there,” Scheierman said of what went through his mind when Garza took that shot. “But, I mean, it was a big-time shot. Little catch-high, keep-high. But yeah, I mean, we wanted to get him a three. That’s not necessarily how we had it drawn up to get there, but yeah.”
Garza walked back to the bench, screaming. The Celtics, active players and unavailable players alike, engulfed him in a sea of white and gold (and street clothes).
“It was more of a good read by Luka,” Mazzulla said. “Just a good shot.”
The Celtics got a final stop, and that was that. Victory in Boston.
It was Game 82. From a standings perspective, Boston gained nothing from winning. But they didn’t care.
They wanted to win because that’s the standard that has been set.
“We said it all year, one through 15, whoever steps on the floor, there’s an expectation to put us in position with the opportunity to win,” Mazzulla said. “Stick to the process of winning. Today is no different than the other 81 games from the standpoint of we had five guys that were able to play, we had seven, eight guys, and the expectation is to put us in position to win, to execute, to play hard, to play together. So today is no different than the other 81 times, regardless of who’s in, who’s out.”
Boston’s bench guys could have waltzed onto the court with their own agendas. Wanting to jack up shots. Wanting to prove themselves. Wanting to play their own brand of basketball. But that’s not Celtics culture.
All year, Boston has backed itself. Mazzulla has backed his players, his coaching staff, and the front office. And that backing has been reciprocated in waves throughout the entire organization.
Supporting Mazzulla, supporting the staff, and supporting each other.
“Our togetherness,” Scheierman said of his biggest takeaway from the season. “There was no separation in the locker room, regardless of what went on in the preseason. And even the rough start we got off to, the 0-3 start, there was no separation. We stayed together. And that was kind of how it was through the ups and downs of the whole year, and I think that’s the biggest takeaway I have.”
So, as the lights dimmed on a whirlwind of a regular season, there was no other way the Celtics were going to go out.
At the tail end of a season hallmarked by player development, internal growth, and ignoring external expectations, the eight-man Celtics took down a Magic team that desperately wanted to win.
Because of course they did.
