Miraculous regular-season finale keeps paying massive dividends for Celtics

It’s been almost 10 days since the incredible regular-season finale, which saw the Celtics’ deep bench players rally for one of the most unlikely wins you’ll ever see over a full-strength Magic team that was fighting for its postseason life. And yet, the ripple effects from that remarkable result are still being felt.

For starters, the win was a great culmination of the season the Celtics just had. It was a motivational day at TD Garden, and that momentum, along with what had been building all season, definitely carried over into Game One against the 76ers. 

It should also be noted that three of the stars from the win over Orlando, Luka Garza, Jordan Walsh, and Baylor Scheierman, all played key reserve roles in Sunday’s win over Philly, and looked more than ready for the moment.

Magic up 1-0 on the Pistons

Beyond that, the loss has had a profound impact on the Magic, and it has spawned a wild conspiracy theory that they were losing to avoid Boston in Round One. That’s far-fetched and highly implausible for a number of reasons, but the recent results make it hard to argue.

The Magic looked as good as they have all season on Friday night, destroying the lovable young Hornets in the final play-in game to win the 8-seed. As if that wasn’t enough, Orlando followed it up by going into Detroit and stealing Game One against the top-seeded Pistons on Sunday.

That series is obviously far from over, but that’s a pretty eye-opening Game One result. This is the team that the Magic were supposed to be all year, and if it’s finally clicking in the playoffs, that would be crazy. It’s especially notable for the Celtics, as the Pistons are the only team that finished ahead of them and would have homecourt advantage in a potential Eastern Conference Finals showdown.

It would still be stunning to see them fail to get past Orlando, but any extra mileage in the early rounds is a welcome sight for Celtics fans. 

Knicks and Hawks tied 1-1

On top of that, the Orlando loss in game 82 jumbled up the standings some more, and by virtue of them falling by a game, it created a two-team tiebreak for fifth place, which was won by the Raptors. That flipped the matchups at the last second, forcing the Raptors to play the Cavaliers, and the Hawks to play the Knicks in round one.

That’s a much tougher outcome for New York, as we saw on Monday night, when the Hawks went into MSG and pulled off a stunner, stealing Game Two and evening that series as it shifts to Atlanta.

Much like in the case of Orlando/Detroit, the Knicks are still the heavy favorites and should advance to round two, where they’ll likely play the Celtics. But this extra tread on their tires is outstanding news for all of Celtics Nation.

It may have seemed meaningless at the time, but the legend of that regular-season finale only continues to grow. When it’s all said and done, we may be looking back on that game as a lynchpin moment that helped fuel a championship run.

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