National Basketball Association

Magic saga looks headed for unfortunate finish

Updated Feb. 28, 2023 11:24 a.m. ET

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BOSTON — The most common school of thought with regard to the Orlando Magic is that their season ended long before it started, on Dec. 10, the day Magic GM Otis Smith informed the world that Dwight Howard had demanded a trade.

Soon afterward, Howard would confirm that he wanted out, and in the four months since the star center's proclamation that his days in Central Florida were done — or at the very least, numbered — the Magic have gone on quite the adventure.

They've had impressive winning streaks and dreadful losing streaks and a contentious atmosphere in the locker room that manifested itself in frequent frustration on the floor. They've had Howard go back and forth and back and forth and back again, waffling about his future, only to eventually decide to waive his early-termination clause at the last minute, sentencing the Magic to another year in free agency hell.

Then a report surfaced Wednesday, courtesy of Orlando TV station WKMG, that Howard, even if he is fully healed from a herniated disc in time for the postseason, has informed Magic ownership that he still won't return, so long as Stan Van Gundy is the coach.

This latest bit of news only fueled the prevailing thought: This isn't going to end well.

Not surprisingly, it hasn't. And on Wednesday, in a must-win game for Orlando, the shorthanded Boston Celtics pounded the final nail in the Magic's proverbial coffin in the form of a 102-98 victory at TD Garden.

Pack it up, boys. This one's done. Better luck next year.

"I'm not unhappy with our guys in terms of what they're putting into the game and their approach," Van Gundy said after the loss. "I think that they're working really, really hard. We've just got to get better defensively."

If there was ever a game for the Magic to hunker down on D and earn a confidence-boosting win over a possible playoff foe, it was this one. Boston came into the game on tired legs, having played four games in five nights, and they were without Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Mickael Pietrus.

But Paul Pierce, coming off of a 43-point game Tuesday in New York, made his co-stars' absences easier to swallow, scoring 29 points and dishing out a career-high 14 assists in the win. Point guard Avery Bradley scored 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting and former Magic forward Brandon Bass scored 21 points for Boston, which claimed the Atlantic Division title and the No. 4 seed in the East.

The Magic (36-26) dropped to 0-3 on the season against the Celtics, and now the fear is that they might face them in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Orlando's loss, along with Atlanta's win over Detroit, dropped the Magic one game back of the Hawks for the No. 5 seed with four games left, which is exactly where they want to be. Because the Magic, already a likely candidate for a swift first-round exit, even if they play No. 3 Indiana, are in for a certain rude awakening if they draw the Celtics (37-26).

"I think we're capable of beating them," Magic forward Glen Davis said of a potential matchup with his former team. "Today we didn't have two of our guys, and they didn't have two of their guys, but we had a big missing piece today, and we still came out there and played the right way and were in the game."

But in the postseason, teams don't play just to be competitive. And those guys Boston was missing? They'll be back. Orlando's? They won't.

Doc Rivers left Boston shorthanded by choice Wednesday, and his team will assuredly be at full-strength by the time the first round starts, and they still won anyway. The players Orlando has now are the ones they'll have going forward, and that's a terrifying proposition.

"Our approach is that this is our team, not only in the regular season, but in the playoffs," Van Gundy said. "If we get him back, obviously that would be a huge bonus, but we're not expecting that at this point."

Howard's injury, along with an injury to starting forward Hedo Turkoglu, puts Orlando in a precarious position, but the star big man's refusal to play for Van Gundy, if indeed the report is true, would certainly be a fitting ending to a season that was already in tatters.

"Obviously, you always wonder what it's going to be like with those guys and how much better we can be, but this is what we have," Orlando forward Ryan Anderson said. "We can't think about what we don't have."

Howard's absence was magnified Wednesday as the undermanned Celtics shot 14-of-19 in the first quarter, running out to a 33-22 lead at the end of the period. For the game, they shot 54.3 percent, becoming the fifth team in six games with Howard out of commission to shoot at least 50 percent from the field against the Magic.

"We're staying together, we're fighting hard, all of that," Van Gundy said after the loss. "We're just not able to stop anybody right now. … It's not a trickle-down effect; it's the fact that you don't have him. It's not anything else. … We're just scrambling right now because we don't have anything we can rely on."

With Howard out of the picture, the Magic won't just need to be good to beat Boston or Indiana in the first round. They'll have to offer an other-worldly performance — one they're simply not cut out to deliver.

Because, while the Magic are a team without a center, without locker room chemistry, and with a coach without a care in the world, Indiana has a 7-foot All-Star in Roy Hibbert, who will abuse Orlando's undersized front court. They also have a pair of underrated stars in Danny Granger and David West who will impose their will both on the wings and inside.

Boston has a player in Pierce who, even as he enters the twilight of his career, is still the best player on the floor, and a veteran big man in Kevin Garnett, who serves as the emotional leader that Howard wishes he was.

"Whatever happens, happens," Davis said Wednesday. "Whether we play Indiana or Boston, we're going to bring energy and play hard, and that's all that matters."

Except that won't be enough.

"Everybody's got to be better," Van Gundy said, "and (tonight) we were not."

And they won't be.

Everything started to unravel in Orlando on Dec. 10, and now, after a regular season that was more nightmarish than their record might indicate, it seems the Magic have reached the end of the spool.

Follow Sam Gardner on Twitter: @sam_gardner