Game Recap: 76ers 109, Celtics 100
The Philadelphia 76ers defeat the Boston Celtics, 109-100, in Game 7 to win the series 4-3.
The Philadelphia 76ers were always a wild card this season, consistently inconsistent and never healthy for a significant stretch.
But the potential for big things was always there, and the Sixers did big things in their first-round series with the Boston Celtics, coming back from a 3-1 series deficit and winning Game 7 on the road on Saturday.
The Sixers almost blew all of a 18-point, second-half lead, but pulled away down the stretch and claimed a 109-100 victory that sent them to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the sixth time in the last nine years. It was a pretty stunning result, though maybe not for the group that pulled it off.
“We’ve had this weird swag about us all year,” Tyrese Maxey said. “This confidence in that we know who we can be, and we know who are are.”
Joel Embiid led Philadelphia with 34 points, 12 rebounds and six assists, while Maxey added 30, 11 and seven. The Celtics were without Jayson Tatum (left knee stiffness) and just couldn’t get over the hump after cutting that 18-point deficit down to one with less than four minutes left.
Here are some notes, numbers and film as road teams improved to 10-7 in Game 7s over the last six years:
1. Maxey closes the deal with a burst of speed
With a little more than two minutes left, the two teams had combined to score just two points on their last eight possessions, and those two points came via a loose-ball foul. The defenses were stout and the jumpers were not falling.
The Sixers had mostly been running their offense through Embiid, but after Payton Pritchard missed a wide-open 3-pointer that would have given the Celtics the lead, Maxey brought the ball up the floor. Embiid was being defended by Jaylen Brown, but he headed to the right corner and called for Kelly Oubre Jr. (defended by Neemias Queta) to set a ball-screen for Maxey.
Oubre approached slowly and then flipped the screen on Derrick White. Queta had one foot beyond the 3-point line, high enough to keep Maxey from stepping into a comfortable jumper. But it was too high to keep Maxey in front of him. The Sixers’ point guard hit the gas pedal, got a half step on Queta and then sliced in front of him for a reverse layup that put the Sixers up three with exactly two minutes left:
On the very next possession, the Sixers ran the same action. This time, White slid under the initial screen and cut Maxey off. So he flipped the ball to Oubre and followed for a hand-off, going right. Again, Queta was up near the 3-point line. And again, Maxey beat him to the basket, squeezing past two help defenders:
Queta was the defensive option at center for the Celtics, while White was an All-Defense candidate. And Maxey beat them both for the two biggest buckets of the series.
Over the seven games, the guy Queta was guarding set 90 ball-screens for Maxey, the second most for any ball-handler-screener-defender combination in the playoffs through Saturday. That action wasn’t particularly fruitful for the Sixers, who scored just 0.83 points per possession when it led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line.
But in crunch time of Game 7, Maxey still had his burst, while others on the floor were dragging. He scored his 30 points on an efficient 11-for-18 shooting, and he’s going to be a problem for the Knicks in the next round.
2. Celtics try everything against Embiid
Embiid had it going from the start of Game 7, scoring 10 points and dishing out five assists in the first quarter. He hit a couple of pick-and-pop jumpers, he made good reads against double-teams, and he beat Queta one-on-one.
Embiid played the final four games of the series, and the Celtics just never found a solution for guarding him. They tried Hugo Gonzales, who had barely played through the first six games. They tried guarding him with Brown, who didn’t have much of a chance. And eventually, the Celtics played some zone.
Maybe a little worn down, Embiid shot just 2-for-9 in the fourth quarter. But with the barely holding onto their lead, all seven of his fourth quarter points were huge. He drained a face-up jumper over Queta and a pick-and-pop 3 when Brown chose not to close out on him. And finally, he drew a foul on Brown in the post and put the Sixers up three with a pair of free throws with 4:45 left.
This wasn’t Embiid’s highest-scoring playoff series (28.0 points per game) and it was far from his most efficient (true shooting percentage of 53.7%). He struggled to defend the pick-and-roll for most of the last four games, and he appeared to suffer a knee injury down the stretch on Saturday.
But the Sixers were 3-1 when he played and the league’s fourth-ranked defense couldn’t figure out how to guard him.
3. Celtics’ gamble with starting lineup backfires
With Tatum out, the Celtics obviously had to make a change to their starting lineup. They didn’t have to make three changes, but that’s what they did. Out were Tatum, Queta and Sam Hauser. And in their place were Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza and Ron Harper Jr., who were ninth, 10th and 11th on the Celtics in total minutes through the first six games.
That five-man group had not played together all season. Starting them in Game 7 was certainly a gamble … and it didn’t pay off.
The Celtics went scoreless on their first six possessions of the game, and they were down 11-4 when they made their first substitution. That was Payton Pritchard for Harper, who never returned after logging just 4:02. Garza played more than that, but not much, and the Celtics were somehow outscored by 15 points in his eight minutes and 38 seconds of action.
Scheierman, Harper and Garza combined to shoot 0-for-7.
4. Poor jump-shooting dooms Celtics’ surprise season
The Celtics were one of the league’s biggest surprises this season. With Tatum having suffered an Achilles tear in last year’s playoffs and with four other rotation guys leaving last Summer, this certainly looked like a gap year.
Instead they were one of the best teams in the league once again, ranking in the top five on both ends of the floor for an unprecedented fourth straight season. And when they were up 3-1 in this series (with other top seeds struggling), they probably looked like the favorites to reach the Finals out of the Eastern Conference. With a chance to close out the series in Game 5, they were up 13 in the second half.
But suddenly, the surprise season came to an end, and the Celtics failed to reach the conference semifinals for just the second time in the last 10 years.
This was the jump-shootingest team in the league, with only 41% of the Celtics’ regular-season shots having come in the paint. That rate was even lower (36%) in playoffs, and the Celtics just missed too many jumpers. Over their four losses in the series, they shot 49-for-179 (27.4%) from 3-point range, and they missed some wide-open looks down the stretch of Game 7.
It’s a make-or-miss league, but the Celtics may want to be less dependent on jump shots next season. Tatum will (presumably) be healthy and expectations will return to previous levels.
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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.
