Privately, and sometimes publicly, the Celtics will admit that if there is any one team in the Eastern Conference that makes them nervous it’s the Orlando Magic. A certain respect is paid to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and it’s not lip service either. Any team that has LeBron James is certainly worthy of everyone’s respect. But the Magic, with all their matchup-inducing headaches, are never far from their thoughts.

When they are healthy and at full strength the Celtics are one of the few teams that can play Orlando straight-up, however. Kendrick Perkins is physically capable of handling Dwight Howard without help on the low block, and Kevin Garnett is one of the rare big men who doesn’t mind chasing Rashard Lewis around on the perimeter.

But the Celtics were not at full strength for their Christmas Day showdown in O-Town. Paul Pierce missed the game and will be out for somewhere in the neighborhood of two weeks after suffering a knee infection, and that left them shorthanded. It did not leave them without a plan, however.

In a nutshell, the gameplan was to attack, attack and attack some more. Even with half the roster languishing in foul trouble for most of the afternoon the Celtics were able to escape with a gritty 86-77 victory over the Magic in what was their signature win of this still developing season.

How far this win will take them is still to be determined, but for one day, the Celtics were able to put some fear into the team that scares them the most.

Here are three other things:

RAJON RONDO HAS A FEW MORE TRICKS

Every time you think you have Rondo figured out he does something to make you think otherwise. He is one of the best distributing point guards in the NBA, but the Magic have game-planned for that in the past, forcing him to be more of a spectator than an initiator on offense.

They duck under screens at the top of the key and give him as much as a 10-foot cushion. So, Rondo adjusted. Instead of looking to set up his teammates he attacked the Magic at the rim.

In the first half, he had a very un-Rondo like 13 points, seven rebound and zero assists, along with six turnovers. That was more of a Vince Carter type of line, which was fine because Rondo was actually operating like a scoring wing player instead of a point guard.

Then he flipped the script in the second half, dishing out eight assists and scoring just two points. He also cut his turnovers down to two.

This was an MVP-like performance by Rondo, who also made Jameer Nelson disappear on the other end of the floor. It’s certainly not lost on Rondo that Nelson was tabbed to appear in the All-Star game ahead of him last season.

If he’s going to be criticized for that kind of hyper-competiveness (a la the Chris Paul fiasco) then he is also to be praised for raising his game when the situation calls for it, and make no mistake, the Celtics needed everything Rondo had, which was a little bit of everything.  

THE KEVIN GARNETT DIFFERENCE

It’s impossible, and ultimately fruitless, to wonder what it would have been like last May if Garnett had been healthy during the playoffs. He loves to play against Lewis, for whom he has the utmost respect, and it was Lewis more than anyone who killed the Celtics in the playoffs last season.

Garnett didn’t do much offensively against the Magic, but he held Lewis scoreless in the first half when the Magic scored just 27 points and missed 30 of the 40 shots they attempted.

Lewis got it going in the second half and finished with 19 points, but that’s what he does. With his height, range and wingspan he is nearly impossible to defend for 48 minutes. Garnett made him work for it, however, and he had precious few clean looks.

The other thing Garnett did was he helped keep the Magic from attacking the offensive glass. This has been the Celtics Achilles heel all season, but Orlando was able to get just three offensive boards through the first three quarters, despite missing 47 shots. They racked up four of their nine offensive rebounds on one possession when, not coincidentally, Garnett was out of the game.

To be sure, Perkins, Rondo and Rasheed Wallace had a lot to do with it as well, but Garnett was effective on the defensive glass and active under the boards.

The other bit of good news as far as KG is concerned, is that he looked sharp after missing Tuesday’s game with the Pacers because of what the Celtics called a thigh bruise. Late in the game he took a nasty fall, but that didn’t appear to be related to any of his leg injuries.

With Garnett the Celtics are one of the best teams in the league, if not the best. Without him they are merely good and being merely good earned them an early exit last spring.

THE ADVANTAGE OF DEPTH

No one player can replace Paul Pierce, just as no one player can replace Rondo or Garnett or LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, for that matter.

But this season the Celtics have a roster full of players, rather than question marks. Doc Rivers trusted nine players last season and by the time the playoffs rolled around that number was down to about seven.

With Glen Davis making his return to action -- albeit on a limited basis – and Tony Allen continuing his strong play the Celtics are much better positioned to withstand a few injuries here and there.

Pierce may be out for two weeks, or maybe less, and Marquis Daniels is still a month or so away. It’s hard to get a read on any injury-related information that comes out of the Celtics organization.

But if Allen continues to play at this level, and if Davis can get himself back into playing shape the Celtics will be in the enviable position of having “too many” players for Rivers preferred nine-man rotation.

Shelden Williams has already seen his playing time diminish and Brian Scalabrine’s time will come and go depending on matchups, but if the Celtics can get everyone back they will have as deep a bench as any team with the possible exception of Orlando.

You need that kind of depth to get through the 82-game grind. How Rivers is able to meld all those pieces into a cohesive playoff rotation is what the rest of the regular season if for, but the important thing is that he has real options this time around.