Celtics-Magic has been a physical battle. Jaylen Brown thinks the fight’s just begun

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ORLANDO — Kristaps Porziņģis had five stitches in his forehead. Jayson Tatum winced as he flexed his injured right wrist. Jaylen Brown, already dealing with a knee issue, revealed that he dislocated the index finger on his left hand after a first-half flagrant foul from Cole Anthony.

The Celtics wore the evidence of a physical first-round series after a 95-93 Game 3 loss to the Magic on Friday night. Brown downplayed his newest injury, saying he will be all right because he has nine more fingers, but wondered what might come next.

“There might be a fight break out or something,” said Brown, “because it’s starting to feel like it’s not even basketball and the refs are not controlling their environment. So it is what it is. If you want to fight it out, we can do that. We can fight to see who goes to the second round.”

In some ways, the fight in this series has already broken out. Brown didn’t actually want to decide the winner with fists. But even by bringing up the possibility, he showed some of the frustration the Celtics felt after the Magic turned Game 3 into a tussle.

“We’re supposed to be playing basketball,” Brown said. “That’s what it’s about, playing basketball, getting up and down. The flagrant fouls is piling up, you know what I mean?”

Used to playing the pretty game, Boston has run into an opponent hellbent on producing an ugly one. Porziņģis said opponents need to do that to compete against the Celtics. Orlando is unusually equipped to force Boston into a brawl. The Magic are big. They are young. They are fierce. They love contact. On Friday, they were also desperate to give themselves a chance in the series by taking a game off the defending champs.

Against that type of pressure, the Celtics lost control of their normal style. They committed a season-high 21 turnovers. They shot a season-low 27 3-point attempts. They allowed 15 offensive rebounds, including six by Wendell Carter Jr. After surging ahead by double digits late in the first half, they coughed up the advantage with one of their sloppiest third quarters of the entire season. They believed luck went against them a couple of times late in the game, but luck wouldn’t have mattered so much if they had just done a better job overcoming the Magic’s physicality.

“They got away with a lot,” Brown said. “So if you get away with it, I would do it too.”

Added Porziņģis, “They’re just borderline fouling. That’s what it is. Borderline fouling – and fouling. And some of it they call it, of course, and some of it they don’t. And that’s how it’s going to be. We have to accept the reality and also we can use that. It’s not that there’s only one way, it’s both ways. So we also have to, for sure, we get away with some stuff that they’re catching, they’re scratching their heads. So it’s just how the game is right now. It is a pretty big difference from (the) regular season. You have to make that adjustment as a player and not expect anything. You just go out there and play through contact, play through it.”

In this series, the Celtics will need to play through a lot. The Magic, who sent opponents to the free-throw line at the NBA’s highest rate during the regular season, compete with force. Already, the physical damage has piled up for Boston. Jrue Holiday missed Game 3 with a strained right hamstring. Tatum missed Game 2 for the first playoff absence of his career, after suffering a bone bruise on his right wrist after a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope flagrant foul in the series opener.  After scoring 36 points in his Game 3 return, Tatum said the wrist will be a pain tolerance issue moving forward. Porziņģis has played in each game of the series so far, but needed five stitches after taking a Goga Bitazde elbow to the face in Game 2.

This is the type of series the Celtics will feel later in the playoffs if they do advance. When Anthony yanked Brown to the floor in the second quarter of Game 3, it was the Magic’s third flagrant foul of the series. Though Brown said he doesn’t mind a physical game, he added, “But don’t call an offensive foul when a dude is trying to jump on my back or whatever the case may be.”

“Let it go,” Brown said. “If you are going to let it go on defense, let it go on offense too. Just a tough whistle tonight. Orlando played well so we’ll be ready for Game 4. We had every opportunity to win this game and we came up short, but we’ll be ready for the next one.”

Porziņģis took responsibility for the loss, saying he “played like s—” after scoring seven points on 3-for-10 shooting from the field. The big man also allowed Franz Wagner to drive for two straight layups after the Celtics tied the score on a Derrick White basket with 2:31 left.

Following Wagner’s second bucket, which put Orlando ahead 95-91, White scored again with 28 seconds left to bring Boston within two points. Despite only a four-second difference between the shot clock and the game clock, the Celtics decided not to foul. Though they got the stop they needed on the ensuing Magic possession, Wagner’s missed 3-pointer produced a rebound long enough to take precious seconds off the clock for Boston.

“It was great defense,” said Mazzulla, “and you don’t expect the rebound to go all the way out to half court. So if we catch it two bounces earlier, we have plenty of time on (the clock) there. So it was right at the point where we’re deciding on what we were doing there, and it was just an unlucky bounce off the rim, and it went out to halfcourt instead of getting it around the free-throw line.”

Even after the unlucky bounce, Mazzulla believed the Celtics called timeout with more than 0.3 seconds left. Boston’s assistant coaches could be seen expressing their anger on the sideline upon learning the referees would not add any more time to the clock. Without time for much else, White threw an inbounds pass that bounced high off the rim, but the Celtics were unable to produce a shot attempt afterward.

“I do think you should go back and review the certain time,” Mazzulla said. “I think there was more time than (0.3 seconds) on the clock, but what are you going to do?”

All the Celtics can do now is respond better in Game 4. If they can produce a free-flowing game, they should have the advantage. They have too much talent, too much playmaking and too much shooting. But if the next game is played in the mud, as Game 3 was, the Celtics will need to find a way to trudge through it.

“Just get up,” Tatum said. “Ain’t that what Joe told me?”

“GET UP!”

What Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla yelled at Jayson Tatum while down on the floor with a wrist injury 😳🗣️

Thoughts? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/h5Lt4S7zSf

— Courtside Buzz (@CourtsideBuzzX) April 21, 2025

When Tatum laid on the court after his hard fall in the series opener, Mazzulla could be seen yelling for his star player to get up. Mazzulla despises when his team shows weakness. He preaches he wants the Celtics to do whatever it takes to win. During the playoffs last year, he told them there are no fouls in a war.

“You either die,” Mazzulla told the Celtics, “or you don’t.”

In basketball, you either win or you lose. This series will have plenty of fouls, but many others will go uncalled.

“That’s the battle that we’re facing,” Porziņģis said. “Less whistles, sometimes no whistle. We just got to play through all of these chaotic moments within the game. That’s the game.”

(Photo of Cole Anthony and Jaylen Brown: Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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