Celtics respond to Toronto loss, roll past battered Magic 121-94

BOSTON — Kristaps Porziņģis sat bewildered by a Celtics performance in Toronto that lacked spirit and personality. Jrue Holiday shook off the loss and the latest stretch two days later, glad Boston could play again on short notice and unsure why they’ve struggled with the starting lineup and effort. He summed it up for January. It happens.

Joe Mazzulla, who admitted Boston didn’t play well on both ends in the loss, returned to the podium two days and loved the position they entered the night in. He wouldn’t tell each player how to react, but entered Friday’s back-to-back confident the team will turn it around after a 7-7 stretch. He even showed some urgency by playing Porziņģis and Al Horford in the first of the two nights.

“You don’t rush. To me, this is the fun part,” he said. “(It’s) why you go into the arena and why you do what you do, and anybody who’s not in the arena, you don’t have skin in the game, it really doesn’t matter…that’s why you go for something that’s extremely hard to do, is for the challenge of it. Having an expectation that it is anything but challenging is the wrong way to attack.”

Mazzulla also alluded to his voice behind the scenes, saying it’s up to everyone to respond, and they did with a team-effort win over the hurting Magic, 121-94. Eight Celtics hit threes and five converted multiples. And as bad as Orlando’s injury report looked coming in, the Magic dealt a nasty loss to Boston in Florida last month with key starters missing.

The Celtics’ effort looked more serious from the open possession, defending into Magic player’s bodies. Holiday sped up the offense and found Porzingis inside for a pair of baskets, while Jaylen Brown made an extra pass from the corner with time to shoot to get Derrick White going after the latter missed his first layup attempt. Several plays later, White stopped and started for a finish in the post – and looked closer himself in the victory.

The Magic didn’t give up early, knocking down offensive rebounds, finding the open space against Boston’s defense and making runs to make up for the absences of Franz Wagner, Moe Wagner, Goga Bitadze, Jalen Suggs and Gary Harris. Paolo Banchero played on a one-minute restriction. The Celtics started 8-for-10 and hit their first three from deep, Porzingis made all four of his shots in the opening quarter, plus a pair of free throws as the starters gave Boston a rare 19-13 cushion and finished +15. The bench held the line until a mishandled possession went the other way for an uncontested Tristan da Silva give-and-go dunk.

Mazzulla looked frustrated but only briefly addressed the team in a huddle before the Celtics produced threes to Sam Hauser and Horford. Boston hit its first five attempts from three and led 35-28 entering the second.

Tatum hit a pair of driving layups and stepped past Trevelyn Queen in reverse to extend Boston’s advantage to double digits. He backdoored Cole Anthony for an and-one dunk to reach 17 points on just three free throw attempts and two of his first 10 attempts from three. Defensively, the Celtics lived with Magic centers, but Banchero’s constant threat from there led to several defensive lapses, such as Tatum sliding over to double Banchero from Anthony, and Brown rotating late and giving Banchero a three. Orlando shot 16-for-26 from two in the first half, and held them within 66-54 at halftime, even with the Celtics shooting over 60% from the field and from three.

At least the game developed into a far better feeling than Wednesday when Porziņģis called out Boston’s effort.

“It was an uncharacteristically bad game for us,” he said Friday, looking back on his comments. “No energy. At one point I was like ‘man, we really want to lose?’ It was one of those performances. We rarely had them, but I feel like that one was unacceptable… we might miss shots, (etc.), but we had to have more personality , I felt, but today we looked like a completely different animal.”

Porzingis posted nine and Tatum scored the rest of Boston’s first 14 points in the third quarter, adding 19 points on a 14-7 run, improving to 14-of-21 over the last two games and missing Friday. ​with only 23 minutes. He teased a potential back-to-back performance Friday and said he believes he will play, but he ran for a breakout dunk in transition and missed it when Wendell Carter Jr. fouled him, a play that left Porzingis clutching the back of his left leg but was able to continue. He later wore an ice pack on his right ankle while doing a radio interview.

Porzingis picked up a fourth foul four plays later, catching Banchero in the eye and leaving Banchero on the ground for an entire timeout before splitting a pair of free throws and exiting the game.

Orlando went scoreless on five of their next eight possessions as Brown pushed the Celtics’ lead to 22 with 13 straight points in a far more energetic effort than he showed Wednesday in Toronto. Banchero bounced back, but the Magic’s offense never recovered, finishing 41.5% from the field and 15.6% from three.

The Celtics didn’t quite get the ship right on Friday. With a win, they at least got back to looking like themselves – shooting 45.9% from three.

“Our ball pressure was good tonight,” Mazzulla said. “I thought our shift activity was good … we didn’t do a good job of fouling defense, but we were active and we were aggressive … answering the call physically on both ends of the floor helped us get off to a good start and then I think we were able to make shots and build on that.”