Under the penalty: Key challenge, Magic unfortunately defeated!

Celtics 107-98 Magic, with a big score of 3-1.

in the first half of the first quarter, the Magic successfully achieved a leading advantage. The main reason is that they performed well on both ends of the offense and defense, and the double forwards had a good offense. With other teammates to help create breakthrough space, the Magic's offense was much smoother overall. The defensive end is their advantage, successfully limiting the opponent's outside line and actively competing for rebounds.

The Celtics, who rely on the outside, kept making blacksmiths on the outside, while the Magic got a lot of counterattack and scoring opportunities by grabbing the rebound.

In the second half of the first quarter, the Magic encountered chaos after Franz Wagner left the court. They relied too much on Benchero's personal ability, which led to the team's offense gradually becoming monotonous and easily falling into the Celtic defensive trap, and it was accompanied by a large number of mistakes. At the same time, the Celtics began to use Porzingis's high advantage to punish the Magic defenders, and the Celtics gradually recovered their outside firepower, and the situation in the second half was gradually reversed. In the second quarter, facing the opponent's solid perimeter defense line, the Magic's role players performed poorly. Not only were they difficult to shoot, but even the ball was a problem. However, in the second half of the quarter, relying on Pope and Joseph's three-pointers, the Magic also made a chasing offensive. Unfortunately, Joseph's defensive disadvantage was too obvious. The Celtics kept targeting this point and played a leading advantage to enter the second half.

The Magic's offense began to struggle in the third quarter. Although Joseph was still able to shoot into the outside line, his own defensive flaws also limited his contribution. Faced with the Celtics' quite introverted and took into account the periphery's defense line, it was difficult for the Magic to get easy outside space or break through space, which led to Benchero's ability to solve the problem at a mid-range position with poor feel. The team's offensive efficiency dropped sharply. After the third quarter, the Magic was still in a backward situation.

There was also an unexpected episode at that time. After Tatum took a technical foul when he pushed someone, Wendell Jr. fouled White in the subsequent round, but it was suspected that because the action was too similar to pushing someone, perhaps because the Celtics believed that it was a malicious revenge of Magic. Horford and Tatum became dissatisfied and immediately had a dispute with the Magic players.

Although there was no large-scale conflict, and the subsequent replay of Wendell's moves confirmed in the replay, it also added a lot of gunpowder to the game. In the last quarter, the Magic always lacked the offensive firepower to chase points. Tatum took the outside line under Benchero's defense. Although he could not hit the ball, he got the chance to free throw. The Magic immediately applied for a challenge. Judging from the small difference between the two sides, the success of this challenge basically directly affected the situation of the game.

Unfortunately, although the hand contact was determined to be legal contact after the action, and Benchero also left the opponent with space to land, the referee determined that after Tatum took action, Benchero bumped into the opponent's shoulder. It was still considered a foul for illegal contact, and Tatum was awarded a free throw opportunity. Then Tatum hit three free throws steadily in the booing of the audience, and the score advantage was directly widened to 9 points, and the Magic fell into a disadvantageous situation.

Although the Magic continued to interfere with the opponent on the defensive end, it was difficult to compete with Tatum, who was in excellent condition under the lack of offensive firepower. The Magic also swallowed up the first home defeat in the playoffs since Mosley coached the team, and the total score of the series reached the brink of 1-3.

From the perspective of player performance, Bancero, who was forced to take a lot of mid-range moves, felt poor in this game and did not have a defensive strategy to punish the opponent. Although Franz's performance is still stable, he was targeted by the opponent's peripheral defense in terms of stability in control and stability. Joseph's offensive role is obvious, but the Magic also lost a lot of points because of his defensive disadvantage.

Anthony Black is both offensive and defensive in this game, but perhaps the Magic fell into a big backward situation and needed offensive support. The coach gave Joseph more opportunities to strengthen the team's offense, resulting in this outstanding surprise rotation missing the chance at the critical moment.

Summary of this game, although the Magic Double Stars received more support from teammates, they are still not enough to pull the defending champion down. Moreover, due to the poor touch of the core player and the targeted defense of the opponent, and the lack of candidates to provide key strikes when they are in a backward situation, the failure of the challenge of the penalty at critical moments, resulting in the Magic missing the chance to recover the score and reverse the situation.

The two teams will go to the Celtics North Shore Garden to continue the fifth game at home. For the backward Magic side, in addition to finding ways to maintain stable performance between the two forwards, more teammates must also stand up to support the two, and no longer allow core players to support the team without support.

Especially under the unfavorable conditions of away games, whether Bancero and Wagner's teammates can provide support will be the key to whether the Magic can win back a game.