Boston Celtics’ Udoka, players react to OT win over Orlando Magic despite turnovers
Despite getting out to an early lead at TD Garden Sunday against the Orlando Magic, the Boston Celtics needed overtime to beat the Magic — who sport a 7-30 record this season. Turnovers piled up and Orlando capitalized. It took a 35-point fourth quarter to force overtime, after scoring just 37 combined in the second and third quarters.
“At times when it’s feeling like it’s going easy for us, we get away from doing what we do well to get those leads. And I’ve said that before. So staying consistent with what gets us there,” Udoka explained. “Like I said, I think we got careless because we were scoring the ball easy early in the game, and let them back in it went from a 14 point lead to basically a three-point game at halftime due to our turnovers and careless play.”
Guard Jaylen Brown had a 50 point night, a career-high, but he also had seven turnovers, tying a career-high. Improving his playmaking has been a focus for him this season, though, so some growing pains are expected to occur at this point. He was 19-for-29 from the field, including 5-for-10 from three-point range. The Celtics had 21 total turnovers on the night, allowing the Magic to score 23 points off giveaways.
“We let those turnovers really affect us a little bit. And in my eyes, it was deja vu all over again for us,” Smart said. “Just trying to keep our confidence up. Constantly talking to my guys and just trying to get those guys going and get the energy. The energy was depleted a little bit, just trying to get it back up for us.”
Smart later said they were just trying to make plays, which led to some of the turnovers. He had 17 points, seven rebounds and assists on 3-for-11 from the floor, including two made threes.
Dennis Schroder
“The NBA is a game of runs and it’s not easy to win a ballgame in the NBA. Sometimes [stuff] happens. It shouldn’t happen, but it happened,” Schroder said. “So, I think we did a great job just be up 13, I think, in the second quarter from being down 14 and I think Jaylen, Marcus, everybody stepped up, and we got stops. And I think we went on a hell of a run and closed it out in overtime.”
Schroder had 21 points on 7-for-14 shooting and seven assists in the win.
This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!
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