Can’t wait to get home and watch Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Orlando has gained momentum, confidence and belief after inexplicably dropping their first two games at home. The Magic are finally playing with the energy and resolve we would have expected from this team from the beginning. After a 96-92 overtime win over Boston on Monday night to avoid a four-game sweep, Orlando followed up with a decisive 21-point Game 5 win at home on Wednesday. Now they have a legitimate chance to force a seven-game series and go down in the record books as the first team to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the Conference Finals. But first they’ve got to get past the Celtics in Game 6.
This is also a must-win game for Boston. To echo what’s been said by some of the Celtics players, Boston will treat this like Game 7 because after holding a 3-0 lead in the series they certainly don’t want to lose and go back to Orlando tied for the determining matchup on the heels of three straight Orlando wins. Boston needs to close this out at home tonight.
Unfortunately Game 5 took a heavy toll on the Celtics. Both Glen Davis and Marquis Daniels sustained concussions; Rasheed Wallace suffered fourth quarter back spasms; Kendrick Perkins nearly faced suspension for Game 6 after receiving his seventh technical foul of the postseason, though one of the technicals was subsequently rescinded by the league. And meanwhile Tony Allen has been trying to play through the pain of a turned ankle he suffered in Game 2. The reason teams are always anxious to close out a series as soon as possible is because you never know what the injury factor is going to be given the extremely physical nature of playoff basketball.
ESPN will televise tonight’s Game 6 action live from the TD Garden at 8:30 PM ET.
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