{"id":36928,"date":"2025-05-16T11:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T11:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/36928\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T11:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T11:43:10","slug":"magic-clinch-7th-spot-in-eastern-conference-with-96-76-win-over-depleted-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/36928\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic clinch 7th spot in Eastern Conference with 96-76 win over depleted Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Franz Wagner scored 23 points, Cole Anthony came off the bench with 18 points and the Orlando Magic beat the Boston Celtics 96-76 on Wednesday night to clinch seventh place in the Eastern Conference and the top spot in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Baylor Scheierman and Payton Pritchard scored 15 points each to lead the Celtics, who did not use their top six players and made 7 of 40 3-point shots.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Al Horford did not play for the Celtics.<\/p>\n<p>Paolo Banchero had 15 points and six assists for the Magic. It was Wagner&#8217;s 12th straight game of scoring 20 or more points.<\/p>\n<p>Takeaways<\/p>\n<p>Celtics: Are locked into the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs and played a day after an <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/celtics-knicks-score-490c9490097210751d7483da96de844c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:overtime win against New York;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">overtime win against New York<\/a>. The 76 points was a season-low for Boston, well under the previous low of 92 points they scored at Oklahoma City on Jan. 5.<\/p>\n<p>Magic: Winning for the eighth time in 10 games, the Magic qualified for a home game in the first round of the play-in tournament against an opponent to be determined. A win in that game would earn the seventh seed in the playoffs and a first-round series against the Celtics. The Magic also clinched the Southeast Division. Guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope did not play in the second half due to a sore left knee.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Key moment<\/p>\n<p>Wagner, Gary Harris and Caleb Houstan hit 3-pointers and Banchero scored six points on a 20-4 third-quarter run that turned an eight-point Orlando lead into a 24-point lead.<\/p>\n<p>Key stat<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics finished the season 33-8 on the road, with two of the losses coming in Orlando. Tatum missed both games.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Celtics: Play at home against Charlotte on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Magic: Play at Indiana on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NBA: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Franz Wagner scored 23 points, Cole Anthony came off the bench with 18 points&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[869,7,1266,75,9933,406,1243,1409,403,404,113,78,77,2038,865,871,48,6,475,47,76,3883,402,405,401],"class_list":{"0":"post-36928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-al-horford","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-baylor-scheierman","11":"tag-boston-celtics","12":"tag-caleb-houstan","13":"tag-cole-anthony","14":"tag-derrick-white","15":"tag-eastern-conference","16":"tag-franz-wagner","17":"tag-gary-harris","18":"tag-indiana","19":"tag-jaylen-brown","20":"tag-jayson-tatum","21":"tag-jrue-holiday","22":"tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","23":"tag-kristaps-porzingis","24":"tag-magic","25":"tag-nba","26":"tag-oklahoma-city","27":"tag-orlando","28":"tag-orlando-magic","29":"tag-orlandomagic","30":"tag-paolo-banchero","31":"tag-payton-pritchard","32":"tag-the-magic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114517338086712495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}