The Celtics lost Glen Davis and Marquis Daniels to concussions, and Rasheed Wallace fouled out. All of this led to a Shelden Williams sighting, that's how crazy of a night it was.
The previously nonexistant Rashard Lewis stepped up and played an excellent 4th quarter. The Magic also inched one game closer towards becoming the first team in NBA history to win a playoff series down 3-0.
Lost amongst all these storylines was the Magic's spectacular performance from behind the three point line. Take a look at their three point numbers from the previous four games.
Game 1 - 5-22
Game 2 - 7-18
Game 3 - 8-30
Game 4 - 10-28
While showing an improvement of three pointers made per game, that's a combined 30-98, 30.6%. For a team that shot 37.5% during the regular season, that's a significant downgrade.
In Game 5, the Magic made 13 of 25 3-pointers, with Jameer Nelson (4-5) and Matt Barnes (3-4) doing most of the damage.
Three-point shooting was such a huge advantage for the Magic during the regular season and it seemed like they got away from that in this series. They tried dumping the ball into Dwight Howard for the first two games and that didn't work. The on the ball defense of the Celtics is too good down low for the Magic to rely on getting consistent scoring in the paint. If they want to continue to battle in this series they need to find a way to create more open looks from the outside.
The Celtics don't have the outside shooting to contend with the Magic, really no team in the playoffs does. For every three pointer Rasheed Wallace makes, he seems to airball two. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce are capable of making big threes but they tend to disappear for long stretches of the game. Simply put, if the Magic put pressure on the Celtics during the course of the game from behind the arc, they can build and early lead and force the Celtics to play on their heels the entire game.
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