LIVEBLOG Celtics-Magic, Game 5

10:33 Magic are swarming the court. Celtics foul slipsy fingers Dwight Howard.

10:32 Allen hits his second. Celtics are up by 3, which would have seemed incredible about an hour ago. Magic takes its last time out.

10:31 Lewis hits the second. 88-87 Celts. And the fouls are traded. Ray Allen to the line. Allen hits his first. 89-87, Celts. 6 seconds, one foul shot.

10:29 Lewis to the line. He hits the first. 88-86

10:27 House hits both free throws. Boston up by three. Now they have to stop the Magic. Rumps have been bumped.

10:26 Foul on House. He goes to the line with 8 seconds.

10:25 Allen shoots it off the rebound to beat the shot clock! Time out with less than ten seconds on the clock. The one point lead so tenuous!

10:23 This game is giving me an ulcer. 36 seconds left, 23 on the shot clock.

10:21 Big Baby with some creative ballhandling. Did Rondo hit the rim? It looks to me like he did not, but the officials changed their mind. Go figure.

10:19 Eleven unanswered points for the Celtics. Fantastic rebound by Rondo sent off Howard out of bounds to retain possession.

10:17 Allston turnover leads to a monster Ray Allen 3 point basket! The Celtics take the lead: 86-85!

10:16 Turkgalu turnover leads to nothing. Big Baby's invincibility clock has run out.

10:15 Brain-stopping pass from Ray Allen to Perk under the basket. Magic lead down to 2!

10:14 As predicted, the Celtics have made it a game again. Four points behind, less than three minutes to play.

10:10 Magic take a time out as they discover that Big Baby has entered his invincibility code. 85-79 Magic.

10:08 Rondo's back in. We hope he's had time to reconsider mediocrity.

10:03 We take it back, Marbury. Really. Everything, even from last season. 11 points for the period. Between Marbury and Big Baby, the Celtics are getting their second wind, finally.

10:02 Big Baby with two jumpshots in a row. Doc plugged in his Big Baby voodoo machine. Keep your kids off the sidelines, folks.

10:01 Speaking of class acts, or rather their opposite, Marbury with two in a row. Nice three pointer and a crazy sneaky jump shot for two. 79-68 Magic.

10:00 Incidentally, take it from a former North Carolina resident. Everybody hates J.J. Reddick. Shane Battier, though? Class act. Beat LA, Rockets!

9:56 Turkgolu at the line. He's having a great game. I wish I could say that about a Celtic other than Pierce (who, incidentally missed an off-balance shot on the other end). 77-63, Magic, and Doc calls time. Please have some sort of plan, Doc. Please.

9:55 Marbury with a nice 20 footer. Celtics doing a good job on the other side keeping Orlando out of the paint. Eddie House apparently left his three point magic on the bench. Take a breath, dude.

9:53 Memo to Scalabrine: If you tie some dude up, make sure you have his shooting hand. Dwight Howard gets a basket plus one. 70-61 Magic.

9:52 "I feel good about all of our guys." Doc Rivers never throws anybody under the bus. I love that guy.

9:48 Heartbreaker. Beautiful three pointer from Eddie House came a fraction of a second too late. The third period ends with the Magic ahead, 67-59. It's a frustrating effort from the Celtics, but we haven't thrown anything at our television set yet. Let's get Eddie House some more playing minutes... and the ball.

9:47 The Cs have been quiet this period, but so have the Magic. That's the good news. Three point play for Tergalu. That's the bad news.

9:45 Ray Allen's at the line, and the Magic are out of fouls. Let's hope that two foul shots can remind him how to hit the basket. Rayford Alston with a 3 at the other end, but Pierce hits a big shot. Plus one.

9:43 Big Baby at the line. It looks like his hair is shying away from the faux hawk configuration. He hits both shots. Pierce picks up the rebound on the other end, dumps it to Baby who gets it to Perkins. Five point game.

9:42 Big props to Kelly Greene for her awesome Bruins live blog. The Bs are going to Game 7. Woo!

9:40 Another tangent. Is the Autobahn like one giant pothole or something? "Autobahn-tuned suspension" just doesn't grab me. Maybe they could go with "Watertown-tuned suspension."

9:38 At least Ray Allen can still make a buzzer-beating lay-up, right? 59-50 Magic.

9:37 This is the classic third period Celtics: swooning. Sometimes, Doc runs his game like Voltron—stringing along the giant robot with his ineffective individual units before he forms the team together to make a mighty cosmic force.

9:35 Gortat looks like the kind of guy that the Greek from The Wire would send to cut off your face.

9:34Offensive foul Rondo. He has five now and is off the court.

9:33Van Gundy and Pierce are chatting about something on the sideline. Van Gundy leaning back in evil genius position.

9:31 52-36 Magic. And they're bitching about a three point shot that happened like an hour ago?

9:27 At least Ray Allen can still hit a single foul shot.

9:26 If Rondo were religious iconography, he'd be the Immaculate Heart of Mary, all pierced by arrows and whatever. That doesn't make sense, you say? It turns out that liveblogging isn't as easy as you think, smartypants.

9:24 I plan to bold all lead changes. Let's hope that I get to try that out soon. Pierce doing a great job drawing the foul in the paint.

9:22 First blood: Magic. Ticky-tacky foul to Pierce. Ugly. First C's basket: Rondo! Let's hope he's heating up.

9:20 Play resumes. Magic win the first tip-off, but can't do anything with it. Nice little rebound by Pierce. It's on again. Also, update: the C's have made 20 rebounds, which is frankly more than I would have guessed.

9:19: Sensitivity issues in that the announcers inadvertantly had a pissing match on a set of open mics!

9:18: The tangents will stop when play resumes. I swear I can follow a basketball game. Don't you think there is some sort of conflict of interest that should prevent Charles Barkley from being in the halftime show and the commercials? That is a lot more Barkley than I was banking on tonight, or, really, ever.

9:11: Chris Webber must have some fresh Mark Cuban money in his pocket, right? But we'll admit, Cuban's apology to Kenyon Martin's Mom was pretty classy for not coming via Twitter. Here's a piece of free advice: Never go looking to the Dallas Morning News sports blogs for insight into breaking news. They make the Herald's comment pages look like a SNCC meeting.

9:05: An early tangent. I would like to see the weird medieval cabal meetings that LeBron James goes to before Tom Hanks breaks them all up. Also, I'm a sucker for that Biz Markie ad—well targeted, demographics people.

9:02: Like we said, nothing happens during the first half. The Celtics are down, but so what? Ray Allen is missing shots like Josh Hamilton misses heroin. The Magic, well Dwight Howard, are getting rebounds, executing a solid transition game and draining baskets. But at least Paul Pierce isn't in foul trouble, right? We'll say it again: it's just the first half.

8:55: "Sensitivity issues" acknowledged in the broadcast booth.