National Basketball Association

Magic fail to make history with loss to Celts

Published May. 29, 2010 5:49 a.m. ET

foxsports

No historic comeback for the Magic, no second straight trip to the NBA finals.

Dwight Howard and his underachieving teammates flopped in their bid to become the league's first team to overcome a 3-0 deficit when the Boston Celtics battered them 96-84 Friday night to clinch the Eastern Conference finals in six games.

``To win four straight games, you've got to be perfect,'' forward Matt Barnes said, ``and we weren't perfect tonight.''

Far from it.

The Magic led for just 11 seconds. They were outrebounded 56-44. And they couldn't control the Celtics' 3-point shooters.

``Now that we're eliminated from the playoffs, it's almost like you've got to start over,'' Rashard Lewis said. ``The hard work you put in and the great season you had means nothing when you get eliminated.''

Orlando reached last year's finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers then had the NBA's second best record this season. It won its last six regular-season games then swept both Charlotte and Atlanta in the playoffs.

But then it faced the Celtics.

``From day one since we met as a team in September and started working out,'' J.J. Reddick said, ``the vision we have was us holding the trophy at the end of the season and we came up short. That's disappointing.''

The Magic lost the first two games at home before coming to Boston, where they played listlessly in a 94-71 rout that made the Celtics the 94th team in NBA history to take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series. Orlando showed plenty of life in the next two games, winning 96-92 in overtime, then 113-92 at home on Wednesday night.

That gave the Magic confidence.

``You're just not playing as free and easy as you are when you're up 3-0,'' Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said of the Celtics before Friday's game. ``We've been there.''

But those first two playoff series this year seemed a long time ago as the Celtics dominated from start to finish in the decisive Game 6. Lewis gave the Magic their only lead, 12-11, with a short jump hook with 6:47 left in the first quarter. Ray Allen then hit a 3-pointer and Orlando played catchup the rest of the way.

``Early on we were OK, we just didn't make shots,'' Van Gundy said. ``And then we let it get to us, and when we did, it broke down. ... We started forcing our offense instead of continuing to play and trying to get the same kind of shots we got early.''

The Celtics hit 10 of 22 shots from beyond the arc. The Magic were just 6 for 22 after making 13 of 25 two days earlier. And they trailed by at least 12 points throughout the second half.

More than 10 minutes after it was over, players with no more games to play this season sat silently in the locker room.

Lewis had a white wash cloth on his head and his chin in his left palm. Vince Carter sat with a hangdog look on the training table. Both had been counted on to provide offense and both provided too little.

Carter was traded to his hometown team by New Jersey in the offseason. Despite his $16.3 million salary, 16th-highest in the league, he hit just 6 of 15 shots and had 17 points Friday and averaged 13.7 for the series.

Lewis, the NBA's ninth-highest paid player this season at $18.9 million, was even worse. He averaged 8.2 points in the six games and had only 7 on Friday.

Last year, the Magic beat Boston in a seven-game Eastern Conference semifinal, winning the clincher by 19 points on the same floor where their 2009-10 season ended.

Hedo Turkoglu starred in that game with 25 points and 11 rebounds, then led the Magic in scoring in the NBA finals. But he left for Toronto as a free agent and Orlando traded for Carter, hoping he could help the Magic win a title.

Point guard Jameer Nelson, who spearheaded Orlando's comeback from the3-0 deficit, was held to 11 points and four assists with five turnovers.

``We dug ourselves a hole the first three games and even tonight we dug ourselves a hole in the first half,'' he said. ``Everything tonight seemed like we were a step slow or they were a little better at.''

Howard was Orlando's only solid player in Game 6 - just as Miami's Dwyane Wade and Cleveland's LeBron James were the only two dangerous players the Celtics faced in their first two series. But the muscular center's 28 points and 12 rebounds were too little to carry his team to a spot in both the NBA finals and NBA history.

``Next year we've got to have guys that are willing to give everything they've got to get wins,'' Howard said. ``Those guys played like they wanted to win the championship the whole Series. That's why they're in the position that they're in now.''

And why the Magic are done for the season.