The Boston Celtics handed the Philadelphia 76ers a blunt lesson at home, and it came from the same place the 76ers have struggled all season: the three-point line.
In one of the NBA’s most anticipated regular-season matchups, Boston blew Philadelphia away with a barrage from deep, winning the math battle in convincing fashion. The Celtics knocked down 22 of 49 three-point attempts, good for 45 percent. The 76ers answered with just 11 makes on 37 tries, a 29.7 percent clip that left them chasing the game and exposed a familiar flaw.
That weakness has been there for most of the season, and this loss only put it under a brighter spotlight. Philadelphia, which had been sitting atop the East, was pushed out of the top spot after a very public defeat that was as much about shot-making as it was about the scoreboard.
The 76ers have plenty of star power, and when they added both Jaylen Brown and LeBron James, the reaction around the league was immediate. Fans and pundits saw a roster with the kind of talent that can tilt the entire NBA landscape. But even with that kind of name value, the questions about shooting never went away.
Those concerns are showing up in the numbers. Philadelphia is 21st in the league in three-point percentage at 33.7 percent.
The team is also 24th in made threes per game with 11.5, and 26th in attempts, taking just 34.2 per night. That’s a tough profile to carry into a matchup with a team built around spacing and volume shooting.
Boston’s identity makes that gap even harder to ignore. The Celtics have built their championship DNA on three-point shooting, and they know how to create space better than most teams. Against a Philadelphia group that has leaned on talent more than consistent perimeter production, that edge showed up fast and stayed there.
On paper, the 76ers may look stronger in raw talent. But Boston’s offense is the cleaner machine, and that mattered here. In a league where three-point shooting can raise both the floor and the ceiling of a team, the Celtics showed exactly how much damage a better shooting attack can do.
If Philadelphia wants to turn this into a true championship-level season, the fix is obvious. The 76ers need to become a better shooting team as a group. Without that, opponents like Boston will keep making star power look incomplete.
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Broome, a forward-center prospect, spent most of his rookie season in the G League, where he kept working while waiting for a chance to stick. Now he gets another shot to compete for minutes on a roster with a real need in the paint, and for Philadelphia it is another reminder that the story on a young big man does not always end where it starts. [Read more 🡒]