"I thought we played really well for 44 minutes," Orlando head coach Stan Van Gundy said. "We just quit playing."

Some quick math tells us that 44 minutes in a 48-minute game leaves four minutes unaccounted for. Well, the Celtics sure accounted for them. Boston trailed by eight points with four minutes remaining, but the Celtics managed to come out of Game 5 with a 92-88 win to take a 3-2 lead as the best-of-seven series heads back to Orlando tomorrow night.

"Four minutes, that's forever in an NBA game," Van Gundy said.

Up until that point, it seemed like it would take forever and a day for the Celtics to put together the combination of offensive and defensive execution required to get back within striking distance.

Pierce had been shouldering the load for the better part of three quarters as Rajon Rondo (six points, five assists, nine rebounds, three turnovers), Ray Allen (13 points, 3-for-11 shooting) and Kendrick Perkins (six points, 11 rebounds) struggled to find offensive success. The Celtics shot just over 36 percent from the field through the first three quarters.

While Pierce (19 points, eight assists, nine rebounds) played the aggressor from the opening tip, most of his running mates seemed a bit stifled and resigned to missing jump shots and relying on Pierce to bail them out late in possessions. It wasn't until a Ray Allen technical foul shot with 8:02 left in the third quarter that any other Celtics player besides Pierce got to the free throw line.

"We want to be aggressive, run and push the ball, everybody," Pierce said. "Sometimes it's not there. When you've got Dwight Howard in the paint, it seems like he just sits there. It's tough."

It was very tough on Boston faithful as the Magic held a 14-point lead with 8:49 left to play in the game, and it would've been a lot tougher if not for forward Glen Davis and backup point guard Stephon Marbury. Davis finished with a game-high 22 points (10 points in the fourth quarter), and Marbury scored all 12 of his points in fourth quarter.

"I really thought Stephon Marbury and Big Baby (Davis) in that one stretch kept us alive, gave us hope," Celtics head coach Doc Rivers said.

Pierce began the night in attack mode and continued that approach throughout the first half. His first basket came when he dribbled out of a double team and went in for a layup. A few minutes later he drove into the paint and went straight at Howard, drawing a foul on the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year.

By the end of the first quarter he'd also get to the rim for another layup (which he missed), used his patented up-fake to draw a foul on Orlando's Mickael Pietrus, and set up a Kendrick Perkins 11-foot jumper by drawing Howard to the baseline.

He went 3-for-6 from the field in the half, and he tacked on four points at the free throw line. Unfortunately for Boston, the rest of the Celtics went 12-for-36 from the field and failed to get to the free throw line for a single attempt.

Rashard Lewis carried the scoring load for the Magic early (12 points at the half) and Howard controlled the boards with 12 rebounds at the break. After making just 5-of-27 3-point shots in Game 4, Orlando made four first-half long range and led 45-37 at the half.

The Magic went into the fourth quarter with a 67-59 edge, and expanded to as many as 14 points before trying letting the Celtics chip away at the lead until a Allen three-pointer with 1:20 left in the game put Boston up 86-85.

"It feels great," Pierce said of salvaging the win after struggling mightily. "Things weren't going our way the entire night, but we're a ballclub that believes we can turn things around."