The Orlando Magic continue to be a surprising team this season despite the enormous obstacles that are coming their way. Facing (and winning) a game against the Boston Celtics without their two best players, Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and their best sixth man, Mo Wagner, is a huge achievement.
The Magic beat the champions in a choral game, 108-104, in which they had to come back from 15 points thanks to a bad start, 21-32. But a 36-21 third quarter evened things up again and the game fell in favor of the Florida team, decided by a crucial three-pointer by Tristan da Silva with 10 seconds remaining.
But before that, with 3:36 to go before the final buzzer, came the fight of the night in the NBA. Goga Bitadze tried to mediate in an argument between Kristaps Porzingis and Jalen Suggs, probably taking advantage of some unfinished business, and ended up being ejected for grabbing the Latvian by the neck. Porzingis and Suggs each earned a technical. Bitadze, by the way, was then involved in a curious scene, as seen in the video. He waved goodbye to Porzingis because he thought he had been ejected and reacted with amazement when he was told that he was the one who had been ejected.
The Boston Celtics played for the second night in a row without Jayson Tatum due to illness and lost their seventh game of the season despite Jaylen Brown‘s 35 points. As a reassuring fact for the green fans, at this time at Christmas, the Celtics had a record of 22-6 (compared to 22-7 this season), and we all know how the story ended.
