By Paul Levine Jan 27, 2012, 9:43 GMT
Los Angeles - The Boston Celtics found another way to embarrass the Orlando Magic for the second time this week.
Paul Pierce scored 24 points while rookie E'Ttuan Moore added a career-high 16 and the short-handed Celtics stormed back from 27 down in the opening half for an improbable 91-83 victory over the shell-shocked Magic, 91-83 on Thursday night.
'This is as good as team win you could have. We needed every single guy tonight to win and everybody responded,' Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after the club's biggest comeback in 16 seasons.
'We didn't make any changes; we just kept talking about being a character-builder for the basketball team. We just wanted to hang in there and give ourselves a chance to win.'
Kevin Garnett had 12 points with 10 rebounds while reserve Mikael Pietrus also scored 12 for the Celtics, who were again without injured All-Star guards Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo.
Dwight Howard collected 16 points with 16 rebounds to pace Orlando, which shot just 2-of-17 from the field and was outscored 27-8 in the nightmarish fourth quarter collapse.
'I don't think anybody in there (in the locker room) is happy,' Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. 'We're embarrassed as much tonight as we were the other night. But that's not productive, and I think when we were in the fourth quarter I'm not sure anybody was in a good frame of mind to play the game.'
After being held to a franchise-low 56 points in Monday's 31-point beat-down in Boston, the Magic led by 21 at halftime, but were outscored 54-25 after intermission.
Trailing 75-64, the Celtics opened the fourth frame on a 15-1 run to take their first lead since the opening minutes, 79-76 on Moore's fourth three-pointer of the game with seven and a half minutes left to play.
Howard's dunk made it a one-point game, but that's as close as the Magic would come.
Moore had a layup, former Magic forward Brandon Bass buried jumper and Pierce added a free throw, pushing the lead to 84-78.
After the Magic closed within 84-80 on two free throws by Hedo Turkoglu, Bass hit another jumper and the Celtics sank five free throws to wrap up their third straight victory.
'We thought it was going to be easy after the first two quarters,' Howard said. 'We can't allow that to happen. We've got to change. We have to change what we do, and guys have to know their roles and do it. That's just the bottom line.'
Elsewhere: LA Clippers 98, Memphis Grizzlies 91: Blake Griffin had 20 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, while Mo Williams and Chris Paul scored 18 apiece, as the Clippers slipped past the visiting Grizzlies.
Rudy Gay tossed in 24 points while Spaniard Marc Gasol had 18 points with 11 rebounds for the Grizzlies, who dropped their second in a row following a seven-game roll.
After racing out to a 16-point cushion in the opening quarter, the Clippers had their lead sliced to 91-89 on two free throws by Gasol with 79 seconds left.
However, Caron Butler (17 points) made a driving layup and added two free throws around a pair by Paul, to ice the Clippers' sixth win in the last nine games.
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