{"id":229286,"date":"2026-04-13T04:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229286\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T04:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:11:13","slug":"how-magics-awful-loss-to-celtics-completely-shook-up-eastern-conference-playoff-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/229286\/","title":{"rendered":"How Magic\u2019s Awful Loss to Celtics Completely Shook Up Eastern Conference Playoff Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Celtics entered Sunday\u2019s season finale against the Magic with all of eight healthy and active players. <\/p>\n

The entire starting lineup of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Sam Hauser and Neemias Queta were ruled out well before the game. Key rotation players Payton Pritchard and Nikola Vu\u010devi\u0107 joined them on the injury report; standout rookie Hugo Gonz\u00e1lez was a late scratch with a foot issue. That left Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh and Luka Garza as the only active players who had gotten any sort of run this season. The rest of the lineup was filled out by Boston\u2019s two-way players and G-League mainstays who signed full deals late in the season for financial maneuvering purposes, such as Ron Harper Jr., John Tonje and Max Shulga. It wasn\u2019t a surprise given the C\u2019s had locked up their playoff spot on Friday and thus had nothing to play for. <\/p>\n

Orlando, conversely, did have something to play for and so the Magic\u2019s entire rotation was active for the game. With a victory the team would secure its spot as the seventh seed as well as homecourt advantage in their play-in tournament matchup against the 76ers. As such it figured to be an easy win for a fully-loaded and talented, if underperforming, Magic team. Surely Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Desmond Bane wouldn\u2019t lose to the backups of the Celtics\u2019 backups with playoff seeding on the line. <\/p>\n

As you\u2019ve guessed by now, that is exactly what happened! Orlando belly-flopped in Boston to wrap up the 2025\u201326 campaign. Scheierman, Garza and Harper Jr. combined to score 84 points in the 113-108 win. It was an utterly terrible and (worse) demoralizing loss for the Magic as they hit the postseason. <\/p>\n

It also shook up the Eastern Conference playoff picture even beyond Orlando dropping to the No. 8 seed and gifting Philadelphia the No. 7 seed. Rather dramatically, as it turns out. <\/p>\n

How Magic\u2019s loss to Celtics changed East playoff picture<\/p>\n

As explained above, the outcome of this game directly determined the first play-in tournament game in the East<\/a>. By losing, the Magic cemented themselves as the eighth seed and will have to travel to Philadelphia to play the 76ers; the winner will move on to play the No. 2 seed Celtics in the first round. <\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t the only ripple effect. <\/p>\n

Orlando\u2019s loss changed the playoff seeding of two other teams as well. The Magic\u2019s loss paved the way for the Raptors to finish with the No. 5 seed; a win would have slotted Toronto into the sixth seed. Consequentially the Hawks, despite winning on Sunday, dropped to the sixth seed because they lose out on a tiebreaker. If Orlando had won, all three teams would have finished with identical records, and tiebreakers meant Atlanta would have been the fifth seed and Toronto the sixth. <\/p>\n

In essence the Magic\u2019s inability to beat what was effectively a G League roster flipped the Raptors and Hawks in the standings. The Knicks will now play Atlanta while the Cavaliers will play Toronto after entering the day expecting the opposite. <\/p>\n

It very well could end up not making a bit of difference. But if either the Raptors or Hawks manage a first-round upset over their higher-seeded opponents, this Magic loss will be remembered. <\/p>\n

\"Boston<\/p>\n

Franz Wagner missed a large chunk of the season for the Magic, helping dull what was supposed to be a promising season for Orlando. | Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Magic\u2019s brutal defeat continues trend of deeply disappointing season<\/p>\n

It would be fair to say the Magic are the most disappointing team in the NBA relative to expectations back when the season first kicked off<\/a>. <\/p>\n

With several East superstars down for the count due to injury there appeared a power vacuum at the top of the conference, and no young team seemed better suited to take advantage than Orlando. Banchero and Wagner profiled to be a great tandem on the wing with overlapping skillsets, Jalen Suggs\u2019s reputation as a defensive disruptor was already in place and the front office tried to fix the roster\u2019s lack of shooting in one fell swoop by trading for Desmond Bane. The talent and makeup was there; paired with the Magic\u2019s strong defensive reputation under coach Jamahl Mosley and it seemed Orlando\u2019s time was now. <\/p>\n

Eighty-two games later and that proved false outside of one decent surge in March<\/a>. Injuries once again slammed the roster and Wagner\u2019s season in particular was completely derailed<\/a> by extended absences. Banchero wound up slumping instead of breaking out and the team\u2019s defense was unusually porous throughout the year. Beyond all that the Magic revealed a penchant for losing truly head-puzzling games\u2014this Celtics loss is just the capper on a season full of such defeats. It\u2019s a tough pill to swallow given how high the NBA universally was on Orlando before the year, but especially so after the front office traded three first-rounders to bring Bane to town. <\/p>\n

The year isn\u2019t lost yet, technically. The Magic can still qualify for the playoffs by winning one of their next two games. But that doesn\u2019t change the deep disappointment that will be felt throughout the organization after beginning the season with expectations of homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs with hopes even higher than that. <\/p>\n

More NBA from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n

Listen to SI\u2019s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celtics entered Sunday\u2019s season finale against the Magic with all of eight healthy and active players. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-229286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}