The Boston Celtics opened up the playoffs against the physical Orlando Magic, securing a 103-86 in Game 1. While the Magic kept it close early, and even held the lead heading into halftime, Boston was eventually able to pull away, and didn’t look back.
The Magic are a big, young team. Their offense may be a weak point, but they’re extremely physical defensively. To beat the Celtics, Orlando’s best bet is forcing turnovers while also controlling the boards.
As far as counting stats go, they were among the league’s best when it came to forcing turnovers, but they were far from a top rebounding team during the regular season. Orlando finished 14th in offensive rebounds per game (OREB), 28th in defensive rebounds per game (DREB), and 27th in total rebounds per game (REB). Those numbers don’t necessarily tell the whole story, though.
When it came to defensive rebounding percentage (DREB%), a measure of what percentage of available defensive rebounds a team comes away with, the Magic finished 6th overall, one spot ahead of the Celtics. Orlando also finished 12th overall in offensive rebounding percentage (OREB%), Boston finishing 18th.
The Magic got out to a strong first-half on Sunday, turning the Celtics over 6 times, and winning the rebounding battle 23 to 19. Of their 23 first-half rebounds, 10 of them were on the offensive glass and their extra efforts helped them head into halftime leading 49-48.
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Joe Mazzulla wanted to change the story, and while it may seem counterintuitive, he decided to downsize. Luke Kornet played 9:33 minutes in the first half, but only 1:39 in the second. Similarly, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford played a combined 28:30 minutes in the first half while going down to 22:46 minutes in the back-half of the game. Even Jaylen Brown saw a reduction, playing about 6 less second-half minutes than he did in the first.
The main beneficiaries of the minutes shift were Jrue Holiday and Payton Pritchard. Payton saw the largest jump, adding on over 11 more minutes in the second half than he had in the first. Jrue saw almost a 6-minute increase himself.
With the change in rotations, Boston was able to flip the script on both turnovers and rebounds. In the second half, they out-rebounded Orlando 23 to 18, and limited the Magic to just 3 offensive boards. The Celtics also gave the ball away just 3 times while forcing Orlando into 8 turnovers.
The guards weren’t even necessarily the ones getting the boards, Tatum lead the Celtics in rebounds for both halves. Their activity and floor spacing spread out the Magic players and keep them off the glass, though.
We’ll have to see if Mazzulla continues to have the Celtics play smaller in this series, or if that was mainly a result of Payton, Jrue, and Derrick all coming out blazing in Game 1. Both teams are sure to make plenty of adjustments throughout this first round of playoff basketball.
