If last night's game had ended differently, Brian Scalabrine would have looked at his statistics - 10 points, 4 rebounds, an assist, and a steal in 26:34 of playing time, mostly in the second half - and felt a measure of satisfaction.
But the Celtics dropped a 95-90 decision to the Orlando Magic in the opening game of their Eastern Conference semifinal series. And as Scalabrine made clear, ``There are no moral victories in the playoffs. This was not a regular-season game where you could wait for the game to come to you. You have to go out there and take it.''
Not that the Celtics didn't try in the second half, when they fought back from a 28-point deficit to make it a one-possession game with six seconds left when Paul Pierce hit a 3-point shot to cut the Magic lead to 93-90.
Scalabrine, coming off the bench as usual, more than did his job. Not only did he provide offensive spark, he took on the task of shutting down Magic forward Rashard Lewis in the second half, playing a huge part in holding Lewis to 6 points over the final 24 minutes.
It was a reversal of the first half when Lewis was gobbling up Scalabrine with his inside moves in scoring 12 points, which helped the Magic jump to a 54-36 halftime lead.
``Scal really struggled guarding Lewis,'' said Celtics coach Doc Rivers about some of the first-half breakdowns. ``They went to the post two or three times and he scored. I thought Scal made a great adjustment in the second half, fronting him more, getting him off the block.
``I thought the group with Scal and Baby [Glen Davis] was probably our best offensive group because Baby has the ability to take Dwight Howard away from the basket and Scal has the ability to stand behind the 3-point line and you have to guard him.''
Scalabrine made the defensive adjustment after receiving some tough love/advice from forward Kevin Garnett, who has been forced to watch the playoffs from the bench because of a knee injury.
``He told me, you can't match up with him inside,'' said Scalabrine. ``He said that I needed to play dirty, which means getting him early and making him do things to get him out of his rhythm.''
It worked to a point in the second half, although it took a while, and it also took some solid play from the bench, which had been almost a nonfactor in the early part of the series against the Bulls but has been more productive each game. Last night, for example, the bench effort was led by Scalabrine and included Stephon Marbury (8 points in 8:49) and Eddie House (6 points in 13:24). It provided the oomph the Celtics needed to be competitive down the stretch after the horrible start.
Scalabrine was not pleased with the end result.
``We've got to play better,'' he said. ``We've got to bring it for 48 minutes. At the end of the day, it is still a loss and we didn't want that to happen. We played two separate games.''
Scalabrine knows the Celtics have lost their home-court edge, just as they lost the first game of the opening round at home vs. the Bulls.
He knows the contributions from the bench will have to not only continue, but increase, although he says a group effort will make the difference.
Last night it didn't happen early enough or long enough to allow the Celtics to completely recover from their lackadaisical start.
``It's all about making plays,'' said Scalabrine. ``We didn't make enough of them.''
Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com
