The Celtics didn’t just get hot from deep last night. They built the fire.
Boston and Philadelphia were locked up twice, first at 76 and then again at 79, before the Celtics ripped the game open with a run that turned a close one into a blowout. Over the final 16 minutes, Boston buried 11 threes, with Payton Pritchard knocking down four and Paul George adding three of his own. But the real damage came before George ever got rolling, when the Celtics used a sharp end-of-third-quarter stretch to crack the Sixers’ defense.
It started with a pair of nearly identical actions that exposed Philadelphia’s coverage. On the first, Pritchard came off two screens, one from Jayson Tatum and one from Mitchell Robinson, against a Sixers drop look that was supposed to steer him into the mid-range.
Instead, Philadelphia, and Joel Embiid in particular, didn’t seem to register that both screens were coming. Dean Wade dropped and gave Pritchard space, then Embiid dropped too even though Wade already had Robinson covered.
With both defenders chasing Robinson, Pritchard walked into a clean three.
The next sequence looked similar at first, but the Celtics changed the shape of it. Pritchard didn’t just run a pick-and-roll with Tatum; he tossed it to Robinson first, took a screen from Tatum, and then flowed into a dribble handoff with Robinson.
Embiid stayed back in drop, Robinson’s roll kept him occupied, and Tatum’s screen knocked Maxey off line long enough for Pritchard to get free again. Tatum’s screening mattered on both shots, and so did the spacing around the play.
Then Boston showed another way to stress the defense: Tatum attacking the paint, drawing bodies, and creating a clean look for someone else. He started by trying to get to the basket with good spacing and only Embiid in front of him.
Embiid cut him off and pushed him toward the corner, and when Sam Hauser slid into the space Tatum had just vacated, Tatum then tried to post Wade up. That gravity pulled two defenders into the paint, opening Hauser on the perimeter.
VJ Edgecombe lunged at the pass and took himself out of the play, while Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was left stuck between choices. Pritchard had already hit two threes, and that hesitation showed.
It was all created by Tatum’s pressure on the lane and his ability to bend the defense in a different way.
Boston went right back to the same theme on the next major possession, only this time the ball actually found Mitchell Robinson on the roll. Tatum set the initial screen up at the logo, which is the kind of action that still makes you stop and stare.
An elite shooter, a superstar screener, two corner threats, and a roll man down the middle is a brutal setup to defend. Neemias Queta slipped what was supposed to be a pick-and-roll because Wade stayed attached to Tatum, so Pritchard got the ball to him.
That drew the defense in, Queta swung it to Hauser, and suddenly all five Sixers were below the free-throw line while Jayson Tatum stood alone at the top of the key. The finish was easy because the movement was clean.
The Celtics kept squeezing the paint, and Philadelphia kept flinching. On another possession, Pritchard and Queta ran a pick-and-roll and didn’t even execute it cleanly, but the Sixers still reacted as if the floor were collapsing.
Four defenders ended up with at least one foot in the paint. That overreaction led to Maxey flying out at Scheierman in complete control-loss mode, and Scheierman did the rest by faking, setting his feet, and drilling the shot.
That was the pattern all night: paint pressure, defensive panic, open threes. Even when the ball didn’t reach the rim, the threat of the roll man dragged defenders out of shape. Boston kept forcing Philadelphia to make decisions it couldn’t handle.
The Celtics also backed up the offensive burst with strong defense. They limited the Sixers to one shot and added pressure through cross-matches that created confusion. Philadelphia missed some good looks, but Boston never let the other end generate the same kind of stress its offense was creating.
So yes, the threes were falling. But this wasn’t just a case of a team getting lucky from outside. The Celtics made the defense crack, over and over again, and then cashed in when it did.
In Other News...
Joel Embiid Just Gave The Sixers Another Brutal Health Scare
Joel Embiid gave the 76ers another tense moment in their game against the Celtics when he took a hard fall and limped to the locker room before halftime. He did come back for the second half, which was the immediate relief Philadelphia needed, but the scene was a reminder of how fragile the margin is around its franchise center.
Embiid has already been working through plantar fasciitis and recently tweaked his ankle, so any new stumble naturally sets off alarms for a team with limited depth behind him at center. His status is expected to be day-to-day, but for the Sixers, the bigger concern is how often they can keep absorbing these scares without it turning into something more serious. [Read more 🡒]
Joel Embiid Is Back In A Debate Sixers Fans Dread
Joel Embiid gave the Sixers another uneasy reminder of how quickly a game can turn tense when he went down awkwardly against the Celtics and appeared to tweak his ankle before heading off the floor at halftime. He did return for the second half and even knocked down a three-pointer, but the sequence was enough to put Philadelphia back in the familiar position of monitoring every stumble, grimace and slow walk from its franchise center.
Bill Simmons added another layer to the conversation by criticizing Embiids reactions to injuries, a familiar and frustrating topic for a fan base that has heard plenty of outside commentary about its star. For the Sixers, the concern is less about the debate itself than the bigger picture around Embiids availability and how every minor scare seems to reopen the same conversation all over again. [Read more 🡒]
Sixers Face A Big Thursday Question With Two Stars Uncertain
Thursdays injury report has put a familiar kind of uncertainty around the Sixers home game against Toronto, with Joel Embiid listed as questionable because of foot management. The matchup already carries the usual early-season interest, but availability is once again the first storyline for Philadelphia, which is trying to sort out its rotation while managing key bodies carefully.
LeBron James is also on the questionable list because of back management, adding another layer to the nights uncertainty even before tipoff. The Sixers will also be without Adem Bona, who is sidelined by a cervical spine sprain, and Dominick Barlow, who is out with a back injury, while Toronto remains shorthanded too with Kawhi Leonard ruled out for at least another week because of knee issues. [Read more 🡒]