Slumped in his chair in the visiting locker room, his team’s 14-game winning streak over, Celtics forward Glen Davis acted as if he didn’t get the message.
“They can’t beat us,’’ said Davis, who played a season-high 39 minutes off the bench, scoring 16 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. “They can’t. We’ve got just too many guys.
“They came out and they played better than us today. But you talk about a seven-game series, I don’t think they can beat us.’’
But the Magic, two days after snapping San Antonio’s 10-game winning streak, broke through the Celtics, beating the league’s two best teams with their made-over roster.
The game was far from instructional-tape material.
The Celtics shot a season-low 34.6 percent to the Magic’s 39.4. The Celtics’ Nate Robinson missed 13 of 15 shots. Arenas and Richardson went a combined 4 of 17.
“I don’t think we taught a lot of basketball in the first three quarters — let’s put it that way,’’ said Celtics coach Doc Rivers.
The Magic trailed most of the afternoon, but opportunity knocked in the fourth quarter when Shaquille O’Neal fouled out. The Celtics went up, 71-62, when Davis hit a 17-footer with 7:42 left, but from there the Magic took over.
They outscored the Celtics, 24-7, in the final seven minutes, and the man who dealt the daggers wasn’t one of the new imports. Richardson and Arenas scored 5 points apiece, and Turkoglu dropped 16, drilling four threes). And it wasn’t Dwight Howard, who was all but bottled up (6 points on 1-of-4 shooting).
It was one of the Magic’s cornerstones: Jameer Nelson, who scored 10 of his 12 points in the fourth quarter. Sprinting down the floor and pulling up not far from the Boston bench, he knocked down a 3-pointer with 1:19 left that staggered the Celtics. They’d never recover.
“Jameer willed that game for them,’’ said Rivers. “He’s got the biggest heart on the team. He’s just a warrior and he does it all the time.
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