The Celtics were trailing by 27 points and a decision seemed imminent. As the C's were playing without their All-Star point guard, their Hall of Fame shooting guard and their only legitimate NBA center against a team that happens to feature the best big man in the league, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before they pulled the plug and got ready for Friday night.

It would have been a defensible move for coach Doc Rivers. In this season more than any other, and especially with this old, beat-up basketball team, you have to know when discretion is the better part of valor. There’s always another game with another one right after that on the schedule, and the playoffs are still a long way away.

But Rivers waited. The C's got the lead down to 21 at halftime, not a big difference, but a sign that they deserved the chance to play it out. The Celtics came out hot with Paul Pierce shaking off an 0-for-5 first half and the game was within a respectable range when suddenly the whole axis shifted.

E’Twaun Moore, a rookie guard in the midst of a 3-for-22 shooting slump, starting knocking down 3-pointers like he was back at Purdue. Kevin Garnett played Dwight Howard as well as anyone could have imagined, beating him for position before the entry pass and forcing the big man to pass to his teammates, who clanged jumper after jumper. Even Chris Wilcox, already forgotten after missing more than half the season with a variety of injuries, played like a man possessed.

The Celtics scored 54 points in the second half and the Magic scored 25. Not in the third or fourth quarter. Total. The Magic scored 25 points on 8-for-35 shooting, hitting 2-of-17 shots while scoring just eight points in the fourth quarter.

Suddenly the impossible seemed more like a formality and a 27-point deficit was erased in a 91-83 win.

“That was a character-builder for our team,” Rivers told reporters in Orlando. “That’s all we talked about at halftime. Not a big game-plan thing, we didn’t make any big changes, we just talked about it being a character-builder for the basketball team.”

So, where are the Celtics? More to the point, who are they?

Where the Celtics are is easy. They’re an 8-9 team with a pair of galvanizing wins against a schizophrenic Magic team and six more victories against the dregs of the Eastern Conference. They’re old, injured and in seventh place.

Who they are is the far more intriguing question because we still don’t know for sure. We know who they were, and in the last three games they have shown signs of being that team again.

Pierce has recaptured his game and is playing like an All-Star again. He scored 24 points and dished out 10 assists playing point forward. Everything the Celtics did offensively ran through Pierce and he was able to withstand almost 45 minutes of playing time.

Garnett is once again the linchpin defensively, attacking and making things happen instead of letting younger, more athletic players dictate the terms of engagement. From Jan. 1 until this week, Garnett didn’t record a single steal. Over the last two games he’s had eight.

Still, there are questions. The bench after Brandon Bass and Mickael Pietrus is a mystery. Avery Bradley is capable of amazing stretches of defense but remains as raw offensively as the iron of the rim that his shots smack against repeatedly. Moore was a revelation, for one game at least. Greg Stiemsma has regressed. The veterans haven’t been healthy enough to even define their roles, let alone judge their performance.

They need Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen back, obviously, and as maligned as Jermaine O’Neal has been, he’s given them 25 minutes of capable defense a night and a flash here or there of his former self offensively. It’s highly unlikely that Garnett can continue to hold down the paint by himself for long without O’Neal by his side.

But Rivers likes these Celtics. He likes their togetherness and their chemistry. He likes how they don’t complain about shots or roles or minutes. Now he can say with a straight face that he likes their competitiveness and toughness.

Most teams would have packed it in and told themselves that they had done what they set out to do this week by squashing Orlando at home without five key players. Monday was a statement game, a declaration that the Celtics may have something left, after all.

This was something different. It was a reminder that no matter how far they fall or how old they look, you turn your back on the Celtics at your own peril. As one NBA observer put it last week: “I’ll believe they’re dead when I see the bodies.”

They get the Pacers again on Friday night, taking on a team that has already shoveled dirt on their graves twice this season. It may be asking too much for another effort like this on a back-to-back with injuries once again serving as the backdrop. But the Celtics have life, and that’s something few people would have been able to say before this week.