BOSTON, May 13 – The Boston Celtics rallied from a 14-point deficit by closing with a 17-3 run to beat the Orlando Magic 92-88 in the pivotal game five of their NBA quarter-final series on Tuesday.
Glen Davis scored 10 of his game-high 22 points while Stephon Marbury scored all of his 12 points in the fourth quarter for the Celtics who seized a three to two series lead.
"Toughness, a lot of character, when you go through trials and tribulations like that during the game, and to come back and win is unbelievable," said Davis. "Our guys showed a lot of character. Stephon Marbury led the charge in the second half, and made some things happen, and that energy fed me."
The Celtics will try to wrap the best-of-seven series up Thursday in game six in Orlando.
"Well there was a point in time where we decided to lock down, we locked down and didn’t give them the basket, and that’s what created the positive offense for us," said Davis. "We did our assignments on defence, and that’s how we won the game."
Ray Allen nailed a three pointer with 80 seconds left in a fourth quarter where Davis and Marbury combined to shoot nine-of-11 from the field in the final frame.
On Sunday, Davis also hit the game-winning jumper at the buzzer in Boston’s 95-94 victory over the Magic.
Boston’s Paul Pierce finished with 19 points, nine rebounds and eight assists while Allen scored 13 points. Kendrick Perkins had 11 rebounds for Boston.
Rashard Lewis scored 19 points and Hedo Turkoglu scored 18 for the Magic who missed their final eight shots from the field.
Orlando’s Dwight Howard finished with 12 points and 17 rebounds and Rafer Alston scored 16.
"It’s just a game that really hurts you know that you had it under control all night and the last few minutes it’s slipping away…it really hurts," said Turkoglu.
"We got nothing else to do right now. We can’t really be down on ourselves and think about it. All we have to do, just be a strong team, get ourselves together, win in Orlando and come back here and try to finish it here."
The Magic compiled a 28-point lead in the third quarter of game one at TD Banknorth Garden and won by just five points. It was an overall collapse on Tuesday.
"I think defensively we didn’t pressure like we did when we built the lead and offensively we didn’t do what we did to get the lead," said Howard.
"We have to recognize when we have a lead instead of trying to burn the clock out, we just need to move the ball and that is the reason we were winning with five minutes to go."
