I wasn't there in person, nor am I patient enough to wait until the typically excellent OPP Game Recaps. But there was some things I saw in this game that point to possible future changes in the rotation on the basketball floor, and in the trade front thinking. 

It was an ugly game, and many times I felt like the Magic were going to lose. But the Magic have this resiliency to them that truly makes them special. I was observing, and there's been this trend for awhile on it already too, how the Magic have been shifting to get out of their slump and work into an elite form as a team. A game like this against the Celtics, past champions with a better current record than the Magic, is one game but still very telling of where the Magic are now and where they are headed. So I picked up on some key developments.

• There's one hole on the Magic defense as a team, but overall and in general, the Magic can really, really defend. With all the offensive struggles and turnovers the Magic had tonight, the Celtics could not produce well enough offensively. And they shot 47% from the floor and 46% from 3 land too... I had been wondering if the Magic lost too much defensively this year to win a title, but I don't think so anymore.
• That one hole on defense, of course, is the backcourt. It's been disappointing. Beyond the defense, the two starters in the backcourt have also not been there consistently or well enough on offense. 

1. Mickael Pietrus said he was gunning for an All Defense selection, but I have not seen, from my eyes, much more, if any, focus on that end. He's let some easy things get by him recently. I still consider him the best defender, but if he is not focusing and working truly hard, he may keep getting 7 minutes a game like tonight. 
2. Jameer Nelson is a scorer, he says so himself. But he hasn't been effective nor healthy enough in scoring this year. I'm not too worried about his defense because I know he's not fully healthy and I've seen him been a solid average on that side too before, but I believe it's become increasingly difficult for Jameer as the PG to start up or positively influence any ball movement. I love his skillset as a player and can still see him being in the Magic long term, his 10 point spurt alone showed he's capable to still score and create ball movement because he was attacking and being aggressive. But the Magic may clearly need another strong PG always because if Jameer is slumping or unhealthy in general, it can be ugly. I saw this tonight when Jason Williams was the game-closing PG on the floor. He matched Jameer's two assists (a testament to how bad the ball movement can still be for the Magic at times this season so far) and had two fewer turnovers in eight less minutes of play time. But J Will was still the game closing PG in the critical stretch despite nothing special at all in his stat line. I believe this is all attributed to the fact that J Will knows how to run the team slightly better and more confidently than Jameer. That SVG trusts J Will more also. So that's what I took from the interesting development in this game. 
3. Matt Barnes is still not that great, or sometimes even good, of a defender, but he's tough and does pretty much everything else well. I liked his standing up for Dwight in the 1st quarter. I also love JJ Redick's shooting, IQ, and pure hustle. He defends on his hustle and quickness alone tho, he has not enough length or athleticism to do it consistently great. I would still like to upgrade one of these two players' minutes into someone who is a great defender, and if I had to base it off of tonight's game, JJ would be in the rotation and Barnes wouldn't despite his regular rebounding contributions. 
4. The Magic's Vince Carter era has been short so far. It has had it's highs and lows. VC started off the season as a scoring machine and in decent enough efficiency levels. But he keeps getting dinged up with minor injuries and is, in my mind, losing his confidence. SVG is using him less and less, and VC is scoring less and still somehow scoring less efficiently at the same time. He had a few decent games recently in his current slump, attacking the hoop more, posting smaller usage rates for the team, etc... but I think he's been overall not good enough for the Magic... yet. This is the hardest player to gauge for the Magic too. One second he's in this slump and we all dislike him and want to trade him, but another second later he could be in the playoffs making big plays healthy and confidently. I can't ultimately say if the Magic should hold onto VC for the longterm and keep developing his on court chemistry with the team's. But I will point out that, going back to defense here, I believe the Magic cannot afford a defensively weak SG as much as a defensively weak PG or SF. PG's run teams, and there are some incredible starting PG's for teams out there, they're going to score and make ball movement always. SF's play a lot of roles, but in general, do not score as much as the team's guards or premier low post options. Watching many SG's like Ray Allen go pretty much perfect from the field against VC (and to certain degrees, the other Magic backcourt players- JJ, Barnes, MP) is horrible and a big reason to their defensive slippage. I think Turkoglu was a better defender and was given the luxury of defending SF's on a regular basis. This allowed Jameer, Alston, AJ, Lee and Pietrus to guard the backcourt, and all were above average defenders statistically and a big factor to league leading team defense. It is not working out with VC guarding SG's this year. If the Magic replace VC with another star, by decreasing his role or trading him in the future, I contend it can no longer be a defensively weak SG. It must be a defensively good SG, and should preferably be a SF player. A PF changes the whole entire system, but should theoretically work. Tonight, VC played 29 minutes, did not play the game-ending stretch because JJ was more reliable overall and trusted by SVG, and took a highly ineffective team leading (tied with Rashard) 13 FGA's. Perhaps it's time to try VC defending SF's more. I know Barnes is more of a SF/PF, but VC's lack of quickness really hurts him on SG's like Ray Allen and he might've had more luck with Paul Pierce and SF's in general, who uses craftiness and power more than quickness. I know VC's switches onto SF's a lot when the Magic go with JJ-VC lineups and such, but making it happen permanently could prove beneficial. 

• The "Play the Twin Tower's" movement is back. There's always been a contingency of fans who have called for more of Dwight Howard and Marcin Gortat pairing together in the frontcourt. And it has been rated statistically inferior to other lineup options in it's small sample sizes in the past too. But tonight, it really worked out to me. Gortat was used heavily with Dwight and played 27 minutes with 8 boards and 3 blocks. He was used in the game-ending stretch as well and was effective there and everywhere else in the game. With this current Magic team, Bass was brought in to do that but was not as defensively successfully, then the Magic did not try it enough with Gortat until tonight. I know it put Rashard at SF, but he pitched in a game leading 23 points on efficient shooting, and was not making any glaring defensive missteps. And as I said before, the Magic can afford less defensive SF's/PG's than SG's in general. Turk was no special defender either and it worked out excellent defensively for the team anyways. I just think there may be something to the twin towers this season, because Gortat and Dwight can prove to be very dangerous defensively together, and it may help the team overall more (perhaps reining in the over-dependence on 3's?). If this became a positive trend or permanent, Gortat would be here for the long term too, so imagine how that dramatically changes the trade front.
• Dwight is getting better. I haven't always subscribed to the idea of force-feeding Dwight. His stat lines always have great FG% but he can't always receive incoming passes and gets a lot of turnovers too. But against LA and tonight with BOS, Dwight has really shown a better ability to hit his hooks and finish offensively thru any means necessary. It's time to start making sure that Dwight always ends up with the team leading FGA's, because it should likely mean more team wins and making an already dominant player somehow better. 

I hope these thoughts seem enlightening to some fellow fans and that they can elaborate further upon them or anything new I did not catch onto this game or recently.