Luka Garza Lifts Celtics Past Magic, Alters East Bracket
luka garza hit the go-ahead three-pointer in the closing seconds and the Boston Celtics beat the Orlando Magic in their regular season finale. The shot did more than settle one game: it changed the Eastern Conference seed line and pushed the bracket toward an unusual finish.
Garza’s shot in Boston
Garza delivered the biggest basket of the night when Boston needed one late. His three-pointer came in the closing seconds and turned the Celtics’ final regular-season game into the result that shifted the East’s playoff layout.
The Celtics finished by beating Orlando, and the loss would have sent the Magic into the No. 7 seed in the play-in. Instead, Boston’s win kept that from happening and changed the path for more than one team on the bracket line.
Eastern Conference seeding swings
A Celtics loss would also have moved Atlanta into the No. 5 seed to face Cleveland and pushed Toronto into the No. 6 seed to face New York. Those are the margins Garza’s shot swung in the final seconds, with multiple first-round matchups hanging on one possession.
The bracket then settled into something rare. All four first-round series in the Eastern Conference were going to six games minimum, and that had happened only once before since 2003. The last time every East first-round series reached at least six games was 23 years ago.
Celtics, Sixers, and Embiid
Boston’s win also gave the Philadelphia 76ers homecourt advantage in their play-in matchup. Philadelphia beat the Celtics in that game, and the two teams were setting up their fourth matchup in the Joel Embiid-Jayson Tatum rivalry that dates back to 2018.
That is the hard edge of the finale: one made shot in Boston helped decide who stayed out of the play-in scramble, who got stuck in it, and how the East’s first round unfolded. For the Celtics, Garza’s three became the swing point that linked a single game to a bracket full of six-game series and a playoff path that ran through Philadelphia.
