By Rafael Uehara
Special to Hardcourt Mayhem
According to Vince Carter, the Orlando Magic would play game four not only for the names in front of the jersey but also the name on the back. Vince, himself, didn’t live up to expectations but Orlando did showed enough resiliency to survive the Boston Celtics’ comeback, even that it took five extra minutes to do so, and will live to play a game five on Wednesday night.
Jameer Nelson, who had averaged less than 2.5 assists in the first three games, set the tone early, walking the walk after talking the talk about being aggressive and playing for pride. His high pick-and-roll sets gave the Celtics’ defense a handful and maybe more important than the points he scored or assists he dished out early, he sent Rajon Rondo to the bench two minutes into the game after the QB picked up his second foul.
It was the first game the entire postseason where Rondo had a below average performance and not coincidently the Celtics did not look smooth with the basketball relying too much in isolation sets for Paul Pierce and Ray Allen’s wide open outside shooting (yes, Orlando was stupid enough to allow one of the best snipers of this Era constantly free to shoot).
Those high pick-and-rolls between Nelson and Dwight Howard that the Magic put in place worked not only to get Nelson, a non-factor throughout the series, going but also opened Howard since the penetration draw a second defender at him, freeing Dwight to move and allowing him to be dominant. Those sets were the most offense that Orlando has created that’s not off Howard all series long. It worked.
Howard’s thirty points, sixteen rebounds, four blocks in forty minutes provide the insight on how much better he’s when not forced to generate all of his team’s offense. Nelson’s twenty three points and nine assists in forty three minutes make you wonder why took so long for the Magic to put that in place. It wasn’t only those two that took advantage of that. The variation of it allowed much better looks for the shooters. Orlando shot 35.7 % from beyond the arc in game four when had shot less than 30% in the first three games. J.J. Redick shot 3-5 from downtown in route for his thirteen points off the bench, key possessions in the fourth when Boston was catching up with them, and Rashard Lewis shot 2-3, even though continuing to struggle overall, scoring pedestrian thirteen points in forty two minutes.
Boston clearly suffered the impact of not having a dominant Rondo like he was on the other three games. He was outplayed by Nelson, did not control the flow of the game by managing tempo and the Celtics tuned the ball over fifteen times. Pierce did carry them early, thirty points on 11-25 shooting from the field and 10-13 shooting from the foul line in forty seven minutes, and Allen did carry them late, twenty two points in 7-12 shooting and hitting all of the team’s five 3 pointers in forty six minutes, but they just couldn’t contain Nelson in OT.
This is still not a series. Boston still has three games to win one. That said, game four exposed a weird Rondo codependence. The Celtics survived without him thanks to Pierce and Allen’s production but they won’t survive the Lakers without him taking advantage of Fisher. While for Orlando, they are just not ready to go yet.
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