Oshae Brissett Reemerges with Three Celtics Centers Out Against Magic

BOSTON — Oshae Brissett assumed he would receive playing time with three Celtics centers out on Friday. Nearly one month without rotation minutes raised obvious doubts. Brissett felt himself trying to play perfect early in the schedule, when Joe Mazzulla regularly included him. That ended on Nov. 20, but encouragement continued, including Mazzulla telling Brissett the Celtics signed him because he hit six threes against them. Shooting wouldn’t drive Brissett’s return though. His strength — activity — powered his best game this season.

“It’s like, sigh, one of those,” Brissett said. “Again, we have another game Sunday, so gotta move on.”

The Celtics raced ahead of the ascending Magic in what became a blowout win, 128-111, made possible by 48 bench points from contributors who appeared sporadically to begin the season. Payton Pritchard scored 21, Brissett added 11 and Neemias Queta played 20 minutes as the lone available big. Lamar Stevens started in place of Kristaps Porzingis, who sat alongside Al Horford in the second half of the team’s back-to-back with calf tightness. Luke Kornet will miss at least one week with an adductor strain suffered pre-game on Thursday.

That allowed Joe Mazzulla to experiment and the Celtics appeared to accidentally stumble into a more successful formula against an Orlando team that notoriously bothered them over the past two seasons. Cuts, transition runs and athletic contests around the rim derailed a top-ranked Magic defensive unit while their offense stalled. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner needed 31 shots to score 31 combined shots, turning the ball over 11 times. That’s something the full-strength Celtics struggled to do despite emphasizing it.

“There weren’t many challenges, it was more the opportunity, we got to play five or six defensive coverages, we got to change matchups … spread pick-and-roll, making sure we were intentional about the matchup, then having the right screen against the right matchup to have the two-on-one,” Mazzulla said. “Then making sure we made the right play. We called probably less actually than we normally did and tried to work our execution.”

Cole Anthony predicted a Moe Wagner masterclass to follow his 27-point breakout at home against his former Celtics late last month. The Magic, instead, ran into a strong energy infusion from a dormant deep end of Boston’s bench. Neemias Queta checked in and blocked his first two shots as a Celtic, while Brissett hit only his second three in 10 tries after not playing any rotation minutes since Nov. 20 at Charlotte. He joined Svi Mykhailiuk, Jayson Tatum, Pritchard and Queta to begin the second quarter as Mazzulla utilized all the players available to him with almost no centers available and Wagner scored 0 points in the first half.

Orlando started strong though, as Goga Bitadze’s 7-for-7 start challenged Boston’s interior coverage centered around Stevens and Jrue Holiday. The Celtics missed their early threes while Banchero’s make inside put the Magic up 11-4. Boston returned a different level of physicality compared to their last bruising loss at Orlando, with Brown flushing a dunk running ahead of Holiday, blocking Franz Wagner and later unleashing one of the fiercest one-handed dunks of his career on Anthony Black’s head. Wagner and Banchero met heavy resistance on every set from the first timeout on, and the Magic gave the ball away 16 times before the end of the third quarter — 21 by the final buzzer.

Pritchard hit back-to-back threes on feeds from Brown to pull within a possession before the end of the opening frame, then drove at Jalen Suggs and got blocked. The Magic guard crashed to the floor, though, and badly injured his wrist, running to the bench and receiving a large wrap at halftime while clearly battling pain upon return. Markelle Fultz missed the game again on the Orlando side after getting upgraded to questionable, no different from the In-Season Tournament game with the opposite result. Pritchard flushed a third three to carry a six-point lead into the second — one of Boston’s best quarters of the season.

The Celtics shot 60% and held the Magic to 8-for-20, riding a 20-7 run to a double-digit lead they’d never squander and extend to 25 by the end of the night. Brissett began his 11-point night with a reverse layup cutting and catching a pass from Tatum. Queta grabbed one of nine offensive rebounds to set up a Brissett corner three, shaking off his 1-for-9 start to the season from behind the line. Then, he sunk a left-handed slam attacking the front of the rim. Brown’s highlight dunk pushed the lead to 12 and Tatum tried to answer with a gliding, two-handed finish on a pass from Brown. Hauser tossed a high floater over Suggs’ head that dropped in on the run, and the Celtics led by 13 at halftime.

“Figuring out what the team needs,” Mazzulla said. “Those guys are tough because they don’t really have a set lineup that they play with, so they don’t know who’s going to guard them and they don’t know what sets we run with that lineup … it’s getting just getting used to both our offensive and defense system, knowing how he can be effective in that. He made a good point when he and I talked the other day. When you get to watch the game, you get to see what our team lacks at times. Then, you start to develop an identity of, I can be this for our team. So as he’s been on different teams, he’s had different identities and he’s seen that he can be that energy guy, the great screener that creates advantages, offensive rebounds and tonight, you saw that he can do that for us.”

Orlando didn’t let up, returning to the post for a pair of finishes early in the third before Stevens fronted Banchero and tipped an entry pass attempt that came his way as part of two consecutive steals for the spot starter. He guarded big and small in his second regular rotation minutes of the season — coming as a starter. Stevens found his three in the corner on a Tatum kick-out, building Boston’s lead to 18, before Pritchard and Hauser’s three maintained a 20-point advantage against persistent Orlando scores inside. Brissett went to the line in the bonus after grabbing an offensive rebound, nearing double figures, and Tatum capped the third by spinning to his left past Franz in the post for a three-point post up finish.

Brissett began the night screaming on the sideline while Brown threw down one of his signature slams. He finished it on the run with Derrick White, passing back-and-forth following his steal until Brissett threw down a breakout dunk of his own. In control.

“Just thinking about the confidence these guys and the coaches have in us,” Brissett said. “And just getting out of my own head. Settling into the game and being like they want me to be myself, so trying to think about that and go out and do what I do. Like I said, it’s tough wanting to win and wanting to do so well and trying to play perfect. You can’t really do that as a basketball player, especially in limited minutes. You just gotta be yourself and play a little free. It’s tough, because you want to do the right thing so bad, but at the end of the day, it’s basketball and I’ve been playing basketball for a long time … being confident, that’s something that started in the summer when we went over our roles and how (Mazzulla) views me as a player … rebound, defend and knock down open three.”