On this day in Boston Celtics history, the team snapped the Orlando Magic’s 51-game home winning streak in 1996 — an NBA record at the time — with a 100-98 victory on the road. Orlando had not lost a home game to an opponent since April of 1994.
Point guard David Wesley led Boston with 22 points and 7 rebounds, and forward Rick Fox added 16 points, 6 boards, and 5 assists. Reserve guard Dee Brown contributed 15 points and 6 assists off the bench, and big man Pervis Ellison chipped in 13 points, 7 boards, and 6 blocks for the win.
“Certainly, we’re not the same team with Penny [Hardaway] and Shaq both off the floor, but we’re still good enough to win this game this evening,” said Magic head coach Brian Hill after the loss (via the New York Times’ Clifton Brown). “We had a double-digit lead in the second half.”
“We still should have won,” he added.
Today is also the birthday of Celtics center Daniel Theis, born this day in 1992 in Salzgitter, Germany.
Theis played overseas in several European leagues — winning two German League titles while there — before joining Boston in 2017. He would play with the Celtics until the 2021 NBA trade deadline, which saw him dealt to the Chicago Bulls.
The German big man played there and for the Houston Rockets before being traded from the latter back to Boston at the 2022 deadline, and averaged 7.2 points, 4.8 assists, and 1.2 assists per game with the team over five seasons before being dealt yet again to the Indiana Pacers.
Finally, today is also the date of the debut of former Boston power forward Kevinn Pinkney, who signed a 10-day deal with the Celtics after going undrafted out of Nevada.
Pinkney played just 6 games for the Celtics, logging 5.2 points and 2.5 boards per game with Boston.
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