{"id":44969,"date":"2025-05-20T10:01:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T10:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/44969\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T10:01:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T10:01:24","slug":"kendrick-perkins-comments-resurface-during-celtics-magic-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/44969\/","title":{"rendered":"Kendrick Perkins’ Comments Resurface During Celtics-Magic Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans of the NBA<\/a> can be unforgiving when it comes to holding analysts accountable for their takes, and Kendrick Perkins is once again finding out he’s no exception.<\/p>\n

The Boston Celtics<\/a> maintained home-court advantage in Game 2 of their first-round series, securing a 109-100 victory against the Orlando Magic<\/a> on April 23, despite missing All-Star forward Jayson Tatum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The defending champions had looked to carry that momentum heading into Game 3 on the Magic’s home court at the Kia Center, with Tatum expected to return to action.<\/p>\n

Perkins, a Celtics homer after winning a championship with the team, made a bold declaration on Friday on the “NBA Countdown” show before Game 3 that the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference would make their presence felt against a less-talented Magic squad that is missing guard Jalen Suggs.<\/p>\n

\"Boston<\/p>\n

Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown defends Orlando Magic forward Franz Wagner during Game 3 of the first round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Kia Center.Mike Watters<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re gonna come in as the defending champs and they\u2019re gonna make the Magic fold like clean sheets,\u201d Perkins said on the tip-off show on April 25<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As expected, fans immediately responded on X with one account replying<\/a>, \u201cThinking the #Magic will fold tells me you have never watched this team. Orlando may not win. They have fatal flaws. But they don\u2019t quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And they were right.<\/p>\n

Instead of a dominating performance from the Celtics as the ESPN analyst predicted, the Magic rebounded with a gutsy, hard-fought win in front of their home fans, securing a 95-93 victory in Game 3.<\/p>\n

Franz Wagner led the way for the Magic with 32 points, seven rebounds, and eight assists, along with some late-game shot-making. The Magic’s other star, Paolo Banchero, also chipped in with a strong 29-point performance.<\/p>\n

Perkins, who is often wrong with his takes, had plenty of people on social media reminding him of his latest misstep.<\/p>\n

\u201cLmao everything he said that was going to happen\u2026didn\u2019t,\u201d one person tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat aged well Perk,\u201d another said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most profound statement reflecting the true feelings of Magic fans read<\/a>, “Again the sports media at large are unable to talk about the Magic correctly.”<\/p>\n

With momentum shifting back to the young Magic squad, they look to tie up the series at 2-2 at home in Game 4 this Sunday evening, relying on their two stars and No. 1 scoring defense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related: Magic Send Three-Word Message After Upset Win vs. Celtics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans of the NBA can be unforgiving when it comes to holding analysts accountable for their takes, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,75,403,461,78,77,2058,48,6,47,76,3883,402,401],"class_list":{"0":"post-44969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston-celtics","10":"tag-franz-wagner","11":"tag-jalen-suggs","12":"tag-jaylen-brown","13":"tag-jayson-tatum","14":"tag-kendrick-perkins","15":"tag-magic","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-orlando","18":"tag-orlando-magic","19":"tag-orlandomagic","20":"tag-paolo-banchero","21":"tag-the-magic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114539586110369921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44969","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=44969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}