BOSTON — Jaylen Brown didn’t flinch. With Jayson Tatum sidelined, the Boston Celtics’ star forward slung the team on his back Wednesday night, dropping 36 points to muscle past the Orlando Magic 109-100 in Game 2 of their first-round playoff clash. The win, carved out in a bruising, physical battle at TD Garden, handed the defending champs a commanding 2-0 series lead as they head to Orlando for Game 3 on April 25.
Tatum, nursing a bone bruise in his right wrist from a hard foul in Game 1, sat out his first playoff game ever. No small loss—Boston’s gone 8-2 without him this season, but both defeats came against this same Magic squad. Yet Brown, shaking off his own nagging knee injury, answered the bell. He shot 12-for-19 from the floor, including a blistering 5-for-7 from deep, and snagged 10 rebounds while dishing five assists. His third-quarter surge—back-to-back triples to stretch a one-point edge to 61-49—flipped the game’s momentum for good.
The Magic, led by Paolo Banchero’s 32 points and nine boards, kept it tight. They clawed within five early in the fourth, but Brown’s running layup and a high-arcing 16-footer doused their comeback hopes. Kristaps Porzingis, bloodied by an elbow from Goga Bitadze that needed five stitches, still gutted out 20 points and 10 rebounds. Derrick White chipped in 17, Payton Pritchard added 14, and Jrue Holiday brought 11, proving Boston’s depth runs deep.
This wasn’t a cakewalk. Orlando’s defense, which held opponents to a league-low 105.5 points per game this season, made Boston grind. The Celtics shot just 45% from the field and leaned hard on their 25-for-33 free-throw shooting. A chippy vibe lingered—Al Horford and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope tangled after the Magic guard’s Game 1 foul sent Tatum crashing. Caldwell-Pope struggled, going 1-for-9 and missing all six of his threes.
Brown’s knee, bruised since mid-March, had kept him under 30 minutes a game since then. Wednesday, he logged 42, showing no rust. His fast-break slam after picking Cory Joseph’s pocket had the Garden roaring, a reminder of the Finals MVP’s clutch gene. Boston’s 46-34 rebounding edge and 12 three-pointers kept Orlando at arm’s length, even as Franz Wagner’s 25 points kept the Magic scrapping.
Game 3 tips off Friday at 7 p.m. in Orlando. Tatum’s status remains day-to-day. Boston’s 61-21 regular-season record and 1,457 made threes—a league record—loom large, but the Magic, 41-41 and fresh off a Play-In rout of Atlanta, won’t roll over. For now, Brown’s performance sent a message: the Celtics are built for war, with or without their All-Star.