Joel Embiid had 33 points and eight assists in the Sixers’ 113-97 Game 5 win over the Celtics.
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BOSTON — Joel Embiid had an appendectomy less than three weeks ago.
In the third quarter of his saving the season for the Philadelphia 76ers, he banged knees with Jaylen Brown, had to limp off the floor and went to the locker room, with no guarantees of a return. In the fourth quarter, and in the second half in general, Embiid dominated the Boston Celtics and improbably extended an Eastern Conference first-round series.
When the final buzzer sounded Tuesday night, Philadelphia had defeated Boston 113-97 before a packed house at TD Garden that sat in stunned silence in the last few minutes. With the win, the 76ers cut the series deficit to 3-2, with a home game to come Thursday. There were other heroes, for sure. Tyrese Maxey scored a smooth 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Quentin Grimes had 18 points and his best game of the series. Paul George was terrific on both ends of the floor.
But on a night when Philly needed a superstar, its superstar, Embiid, was the best player in the game. He scored 33 points and handed out eight assists. But his impact went far beyond those numbers. In the previous two games, Boston’s star duo of Brown and Jayson Tatum terrorized the 76ers. Tuesday, with everything in the balance, Embiid canceled out those two and then some.
“I want to play basketball,” Embiid said. “I don’t know how much time I have left to play this game, so I want to play. I know the narrative out there is that I’m lazy, or that I don’t want to play or whatever. But I definitely want to play.”
Embiid is so skilled that he is the rare center who can affect a game offensively at three levels. If critics are to be believed, it sometimes takes him out of the post, where he would typically have an advantage. Tuesday, Embiid didn’t play those shenanigans, particularly in the second half. He parked himself in the paint, posted up and went to work. When he did, he scored consistently. He bent Boston’s defense in a way the Celtics haven’t been in all series.
For much of the past two years, Embiid’s body has gotten the best of him. The left knee injury against the Golden State Warriors in 2024. An oblique strain that took him out for almost five weeks in February and March. An injury prevention program that also prevented him from playing in a lot of games. You name it, Embiid has dealt with it. Through it all, he has maintained the desire to play, the want to be on the floor for himself and his teammates.
Given the state his body is in, it can be argued that Tuesday was one of the best and most impactful performances of his playoff career. He has scored more. He has had postseason games when he’s had more rebounds and better statistics in general. But he dragged Philadelphia to a win at TD Garden on Tuesday. It’s a reminder that even though he has played in just 38 games this regular season, his talent and ability are still worth it.
“I was proud of him tonight,” Maxey said. “To see him go out there under those circumstances and play like that — he was dominant, especially in the second half. He did a great job of inserting himself into the game. He carried us tonight.”
The irony of it all? Embiid started 1-for-7 from the field. But that was when he was taking 3-pointers and midrange jumpers. He can make those, for sure. But those were the shots Boston wanted him to take. And that’s for good reason. The Celtics have little hope of stopping him in single coverage, if and when he decides to put his head down and take the ball to the basket.
That’s what he decided to do in the second half, and it changed the complexion of the game.
By the fourth quarter, Boston had no choice but to send double-teams at him. When it did, the 76ers found open shots that hadn’t been there all series. It’s why Maxey hit a pair of 3-pointers in the latter stages of the fourth quarter, with space around him. It’s why VJ Edgecombe’s dagger 3-pointer, the one that sent Celtics fans toward the exits, was wide open. As good as Maxey is, he doesn’t command the kind of gravity and attention Embiid does. And if the 76ers are to finally win a home game in this series, a lot of it will be because Embiid stayed parked near the basket.
“I don’t want to go home,” Embiid said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m glad we won tonight. Because I didn’t want to go home and look back this summer and wonder what could have happened if I were healthy. I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff in my career. I want to give this all that I can. We were better defensively tonight than we had been. It’s a little easier when you’re making shots. When I started the game, me taking jumpers wasn’t working. I had to adjust. I wanted to impose myself and get into the paint a little bit more. When I’m playing one-on-one, I feel good about my chances of scoring on anyone in this league.”
As a unit, the desperation Philadelphia played with is what propelled it. This is opposed to Sunday’s Game 4, when the 76ers played curiously passive basketball and allowed the Celtics to embarrass them at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
The Sixers were much more astute and aggressive defensively in Game 5. They pressured the basketball, they stuck their noses into the fight and rebounded as well as they have all series. They forced Boston into shooting 11 of 39 from 3-point range, where the Celtics had been deadly the previous two games. Primarily because of Embiid’s dominance in the paint, they shot 50 percent from the field overall.
Is this really a series? It will be difficult for Philadelphia to win three consecutive games against a team as good as the Celtics. But if Embiid plays as he did in Game 5, he presents the one challenge Boston might not have an answer for. In past series between the teams, Al Horford guarded Embiid almost as well as anyone in the league. He’s no longer around, and the Celtics couldn’t find an anecdote Tuesday.
“It was a little similar to the other night, where he was obviously getting some good looks, and a lot of them were just going in and out,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said. “I was sitting there watching and thinking that he’s not far away from catching some rhythm. I thought he did a good job of mixing things up tonight.”
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Tony Jones is a Staff Writer at The Athletic covering the Philadelphia 76ers and the NBA. A native of the East Coast and a journalism brat as a child, he has an addiction to hip-hop music and pickup basketball, and his Twitter page has been used for occasional debates concerning Biggie and Tupac. Follow Tony on X @Tjonesonthenba
