Jaylen Brown, Celtics grit out Game 3 win over 76ers: 8 takeaways
The Celtics played an imperfect game but found a way to win anyway.
The Celtics were far from perfect on Friday, but they were good enough to claim a 114-102 victory over the 76ers as well as a 2-1 series lead.
Here are the takeaways.
1. There’s a lot to like from Game 3 for the Celtics, and we’ll get to a number of encouraging factors that feel like they might have some staying power for the rest of the series.
But maybe the biggest overarching takeaway was that the Celtics — who have had trouble closing games at times during the postseason — missed a couple of knockout opportunities, most notably when leading by 10 at the start of the fourth quarter with the newly crowned MVP Joel Embiid on the bench. But instead of falling apart after missing those opportunities, the Celtics tightened their grip and held off the Sixers’ final push. They got the stops they needed down the stretch. They got the crunch-time offense. They pulled away and sent a previously frenzied Wells Fargo crowd murmuring discontentedly to the exits a few possessions early.
The Celtics look great when they are dominant. They look terrible when they stumble in winnable games. That’s all normal. But winning a crucial game that fell in the gray area between struggle and dominance is an encouraging sign for a Celtics team that always seems to have answers when their backs are against the wall but sometimes let its foot off the gas.
“We were organized,” Malcolm Brogdon said. “Just organized. Poise, of course, and made the right reads, made shots, of course, but you can’t do any of that unless you’re organized and get to the right spots and get the ball in the right hands and we were able to do that.”
2. Jaylen Brown’s last two games were quietly excellent — he scored pretty well (23 points on 8-for-18 shooting after scoring 25 in Game 2) but picked his spots perfectly on the offensive end and — more importantly — played some of the best defense of his career, utterly frustrating James Harden in a way that will make it hard for the Sixers to have a shot in this series.
Brown finished off three different and-ones, but this one might have been the toughest— a sweeping reverse layup while drawing contact from Embiid, who had already blocked three shots in the first two quarters.
“Honestly, it started with Jaylen,” Brogdon said. “Jaylen’s picked up Harden, made it difficult on him the last two games and it’s really changed the whole series.”
3. Speaking of Harden, the Sixers are in a lot of trouble if he can’t find his way out of his slump before Game 4. Harden, who has a lengthy history of playoff failures, added a 3-for-14 performance on Friday to his resume. He passed out of several open drives to the rim and at one point only drove and scored because Embiid encouraged him to get to the rim against Al Horford. After just two games, Harden has undone a lot of the goodwill he built by scoring 45 points and leading the Sixers to a win with Embiid still on the sideline in Game 1.
The Celtics are defending Harden well and picking him up defensively in the backcourt, but at this point, some of Harden’s issues look psychological as well.
“[We’re] just trying to be solid,” Al Horford said. “Just making sure he earns everything he gets, and we’ve done a good job of that.”
Harden was asked about passing out of potential shot attempts.
“I’m pretty good on basketball instincts,” he said. “I know when to score and I know when to pass. So I’m pretty sure a lot of them was the right play.”
4. At Celtics shoot around, Horford half-jokingly referred to himself as an elite shooter, and a reporter laughed.
“You’re laughing?” Horford said. “You don’t think I’m an elite shooter? My numbers don’t support it?”
The numbers, of course, do support it — Horford was one of the NBA’s best 3-point shooters this year, but he has struggled in the playoffs so far, particularly in Game 2 when he shot 1-for-8 from deep.
Those numbers were always going to revert to the mean, especially against a team like the Sixers who often have no choice but to rotate away from Horford at the 3-point line. In Game 3, Horford shot 5-for-7 from behind the arc including 3-for-3 in the second half.
“Al, you’re an elite shooter,” Joe Mazzulla said in his locker room speech postgame.
A reporter asked Horford if he still feels any extra motivation to beat the Sixers after his ill-fated season in Philadelphia.
“That’s a part of my journey,” Horford said carefully. “But I’ve moved on, and we have a pretty special opportunity with a special group of guys here. I’m just trying to do the best that I can with my team now.”
5. There’s really no delicate way to phrase this, so Grant Williams got his face stomped into the ground (inadvertently) by Embiid in the second half.
“When I saw Grant get his head stepped on by a 300-point individual — to see that live was crazy, seeing that in real time,” Brown said. “It was probably the craziest thing I’ve seen on a basketball court.”
Afterward, Embiid and Williams discussed the play in a moment captured by ESPN. Embiid apologized and explained he was trying to jump over Williams. Williams understood.
“It’s the playoffs, brother,” Williams said. ” … That’s what we battle for, bro.”
Williams’ defense against Embiid was crucial — Embiid finished with 30 points and 13 rebounds, but thanks to Williams’ defense, he wasn’t as dominant as he could have been.
“Grant does a lot of things that don’t always show up in the stat sheet,” Tatum said. “His value to our team is extremely important. I think that really showed tonight.”
6. Robert Williams also left the game in a somewhat scary moment, as he clutched his arm on the sideline and remained on the ground for several minutes even after Horford subbed in and play resumed. Williams went back to the locker room, but he returned to the bench and was listed as available to return with an arm contusion.
“He seemed to be OK,” Mazzulla said. “I haven’t gotten a full update yet, but I shook his hand, so I think he’s somewhat okay.”
Williams was credited with three blocks (we’re pretty sure that’s incorrect and he should have been given four) in 16 minutes.
7. A lack of timely baskets in Game 1 is essentially the reason the Celtics aren’t ahead 3-0 in the series at the moment, but on Friday, Tatum hit two very timely baskets — a turnaround jumper over Tobias Harris with 2:40 remaining, and a 3-pointer with 1:42 left that answered a triple by Harden.
“He’s a superstar,” Brogdon said. “He’s a top-5 player in the world and he showed that tonight — he finished the game, he played a terrific game all around. But he finished a tough game on the road in a hostile environment for us. That’s what superstars do.”
8. A crucial Game 4 tips off at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. What does Mazzulla expect?
“An absolute war,” Mazzulla said.
Even more than Game 3?
“I would hope,” Mazzulla said.
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