There are times for analysis, times for insight and then there are times when one should simply get out of the way and just let the coach call it.

“I just think our team’s playing awful overall,” Doc Rivers said. “I don’t think it’s the beginning of the games. I’ve been saying it for a week now. We’re making stuff up on the floor on offense and defense. We’re not executing. We’re not trusting each other. And we’re going to win games, still, but we’re not going to win against good teams. It’s just not going to happen. And we’ll get it, but right now we don’t have it.”

Let the record show that Orlando Magic are in fact a very good team and if they had shot better than 15-for-26 from the free throw line the margin might have been double digits instead of the relatively close, 83-78 final Friday night at the TD Garden.

The Celtics are reeling a little bit right now having lost three of their last four, and while frustration is definitely creeping in, they are staying together.

Which leads nicely into the first of our three things:

THERE’S NO POINT GUARD CONSPIRACY

Rajon Rondo played exactly 43 seconds of the fourth quarter. He ran the offense for one possession, which resulted in him taking the ball to the basket and missing. Then he was pulled for Eddie House, who played the other 11 minutes and 17 seconds. Naturally, one would think this would bother the young point guard, but Rondo wouldn’t bite.

“Whatever the team needs,” Rondo said. “[House] was keeping their defense honest. He was playing solid defense. I struggled tonight. The entire team is playing poorly.”

Rondo turned in a pedestrian line of six points, six rebounds and six assists and shot just 3-for-11, and while House also struggled with his shot (going 1-for-7), Rivers decided to ride the hot hand, which in this case was his second unit.

“Well, we made a run so it wasn’t a hard [decision],” Rondo said. “You go with the best unit that’s playing, and that unit clearly had it going.”

Rivers continued, “Today, Rajon just didn’t play well. And Eddie – there’s no conspiracy here. Eddie, you know, defensively he was good and when Eddie plays good defense it allows him to stay on the floor. It’s not on Rondo. No, no, no. As a group we have to play better.”

The Magic are a matchup nightmare. It’s their biggest strength, but with Jameer Nelson injured the Celtics figured to have a big edge at the point guard spot opposite the rejuvenated Jason Williams. But Williams was steady throughout and the Celtics were never able to exploit his lack of quickness on the defensive end.

If we’re looking for signs of maturity, Rondo handled the postgame questions well, but that was small comfort compared with his performance on the floor.

THE CELTICS ARE SEARCHING RIGHT NOW

Considering the way the game started – with Orlando making eight of its first 10 shots and jumping out to a 29-13 lead – it was something of a good sign that the Celtics were able to get back in the game.

“That’s something we’ve got to a better job of as starters,” Paul Pierce said. “I think it’s getting kind of repetitive. Against a good team we’ve got to defend well all four quarters. The slippage that we have in the first quarter is about being mentally and physically ready at the start of games.”

True enough, but the problem runs deeper than a handful of slow starts. Rivers acknowledged that he’s still looking for the right combination of players to put on the floor.

“We are not functioning well as a group, all five on the floor,” Rivers said. “We are functioning well with two or three guys at one time and four guys at one time. And every once in a while when we get the right mix of guys out there – and God knows who that’s going to be before the game. We don’t deserve to win games like this.”

By the numbers, the Celtics best reserve unit has included Ray Allen with the four primary reserves, but going small is a tough matchup against the likes of Orlando.

Rivers rarely had a chance to mix combinations, however, because Kendrick Perkins spent the night in foul trouble and after he picked up his fifth foul (and a technical) early in the third quarter, Rasheed Wallace went the rest of the way.

Wallace continued to struggle with his shooting (going 4-for-16 and 0-for-8 from beyond the arc), but he did play strong defense against Dwight Howard, reaching deep into his bag of tricks to keep the Orlando big man off balance.

“I ain’t worried about [my shooting] honestly,” Wallace said. “It’s good looks and they’re just not going down for me. Every player goes through slumps. The key is the heart of the player and not letting that determine how they play.”

The problem isn’t the shot selection or even the amount of 3’s. The problem, according to Rivers is that his team isn’t trusting one another, and in turn they aren’t and trusting their “stuff.”

Somewhat incredibly they still had a chance to win the game down the stretch, but despite getting a few key stops the Celtics went scoreless after tying the game at 78-78 and often looked disorganized on the offensive end.

Asked how he would have felt if they had somehow managed to win the game, Rivers said, “I would have been [ticked].”

VINCE CARTER IS A DIFFERENCE MAKER

Most people wondered how the Magic would look after they essentially swapped Hedo Turkoglu for Vince Carter. Would they present the same funky matchups that had resulted in so much success or would they become more conventional?

Turns out, it’s a little bit of both. Stan Van Gundy resisted the urge to move Rashard Lewis to the small forward position where he would encounter similar perimeter players and with the likes of Mickael Pietrus, Matt Barnes and Ryan Anderson, Van Gundy can still wreak havoc with oversized skill players and gritty defensive types.

But what Carter brings to the Magic is a guy who can go one-on-one at the end of games and in bailout situations at the end of the shot clock. Carter got up a whopping 29 shots (no other Magic player had more than 11) and while he missed 19 times, he made a number of tough shots with even tougher degrees of difficulty.

“I said that when we got Vince,” Van Gundy said. “Against great defenses down the stretch it is sometimes hard to free people up. You got to have a guy – a Paul Pierce, a Vince Carter, a Dwyane Wade, a LeBron James. Vince can get off a pretty quality shot all the time and at least you will have a chance even if the defense is good.”

Both the Magic and the Celtics are trying to put things together on the fly. Orlando has had injuries, Lewis’ 10-game suspension and even Van Gundy vowing to tone down his sarcasm. In a game where both teams played just poorly enough to lose, Carter simply made shots, and in the end, that was enough.