With Magic Lacking, Celtics Win, 100-98

The Orlando Magic had no Shaquille O’Neal on Thursday night, and in the second half, no Penny Hardaway either.

Definitely, the pressure was on the Boston Celtics.

“At halftime, we came in and said, ‘If we can’t beat them without Penny and Shaq, we’ve got a lot of problems for the rest of our careers because we’ve got to go through them for the next several years,’ ” said Boston’s Rick Fox after the Celtics got a last-second jump shot from David Wesley for a 100-98 victory at Orlando.

O’Neal missed the game--his second in a row--because of the death of his grandmother, and Hardaway was ejected with 1:14 to play in the second quarter after dunking over the Celtics’ Pervis Ellison, hanging on the rim and glaring down at him and picking up a second technical foul for arguing the taunting call.

Still, the Magic pushed the lead to 19 points in the third quarter before losing for the second time in its last three home games after winning 40 in a row at Orlando.

Coach Brian Hill blamed poor defense, not Hardaway’s ejection, for losing only one night after the Magic won easily at New York without O’Neal, whose availability for Sunday’s game against Chicago remains uncertain.

“Certainly we’re not the same basketball team with Penny and Shaq both off the floor, but we’re still good enough to win this game this evening,” Hill said.

“We had a double-digit lead in the second half. It obviously hurts to have Penny out of there, but we still should have won. Give credit to Boston. They made the plays at the end of the game when they had to.”

Wesley’s jump shot broke Orlando’s 51-game regular-season home winning streak against Eastern Conference opponents.

He scored 17 of his 22 points in the third quarter and his 16-foot game-winner over a fallen defender was his only basket of the fourth quarter. Fox had 16 points and Dee Brown 15 for the Celtics.

Horace Grant led Orlando with 24 points and 17 rebounds.

Chicago 100, Miami 92--Michael Jordan scored 40 points and Toni Kukoc had a career-high 34 for the Bulls at Chicago, where they clinched the best record in the Eastern Conference.

Dennis Rodman pulled down 12 rebounds in his first home game after serving a six-game suspension for butting referee Ted Bernhardt--one of the three officials in Thursday’s game.

Phoenix 107, Utah 100--Kevin Johnson scored 18 of his 31 points in a lopsided first half at Phoenix, then helped the Suns avert a fourth-quarter collapse.

The victory was the sixth in a row at home as the Suns moved ahead of Portland for the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

Utah lost its third in a row for the first time since November 1994.

Washington 113, Atlanta 110--Brent Price made two free throws with 10 seconds to play and the Bullets scored the final 12 points to win at Atlanta.

Price was fouled by Christian Laettner on a drive to the basket, and his free throws gave the Bullets a 112-110 lead. After Mookie Blaylock missed a three-point attempt for the Hawks, Bob McCann hit one of two free throws for the final margin.

Cleveland 98, Toronto 77--Dan Majerle and Terrell Brandon each scored 19 points for the Cavaliers, who won at Toronto.

The Raptors, with only nine healthy players, scored only 10 points in the second quarter when they missed 13 of 17 shots from the field.

Golden State 98, Denver 90--Latrell Sprewell scored 22 points and Joe Smith added 19 and Bimbo Coles 18 for the Warriors, who won at Oakland.