Paranoia runs deep in Celtics Nation

With the hangover of Monday night’s overtime loss finally subsiding just a bit, the Boston Celtics will take on the Orlando Magic tonight in game five of their best of seven in Orlando. Despite taking a 3-games-to-1 series advantage into tonight’s matchup the pressure in this series has suddenly shifted Boston’s way.Historically speaking no NBA team has ever actually blown a 3-games-to-none playoff lead. It just doesn’t happen in the NBA; however, this is Boston and in this town no lead is safe. What some people call paranoia fans of Boston sports call history, for they have been on both sides of a very lonely fence. History tells us the remarkable tale of the 2004 Red Sox remarkable comeback over the New York Yankees; history also tells us of the 2010 epic collapse of the Boston Bruins. Yes, Boston fans probably shouldn’t worry, as Monday night was most likely just a hiccup on the Celtics road to Los Angeles, probably.Following game one, Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy laid out a road map of sorts on just how the Magic could put themselves in a position to pull off something that has never been done before.”We’ve got to win one game, and then, you know, you get back home,” Van Gundy said. “And if you could ever do that, win Game 4, and then get back home and get a win, you come back up here and the whole mood of everything changes. Now Game 6 is like a pressure game for them.”For everything that has gone wrong in the series for Orlando, the Magic actually are not in that bad of a position. The fact is that there are three potential games left in this series, and two of them will be played in the Magic Kingdom where Orlando has been dominant all season long.History tells us that the Celtics will close this thing out, history tells us that the Celtics’ first Jack Nicholson sighting is on the horizon, and history tells us that the odds were Orlando was going to find a way to avoid being swept. With so much history in the Celtics’ own backyard, it would be in the Celtics’ own best interest to find a way to close this series out tonight in Orlando. Otherwise the Celtics could very easily find themselves back in Boston desperately searching for a little Magic of their own.