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VJ Edgecombe, 76ers get hot, steal Game 2 against ice-cold Celtics: 7 takeaways
Jaylen Brown mentioned Edgecombe by name three times unprompted as he explained what went wrong for the Celtics.
VJ Edgecombe and the 76ers shook off their Game 1 blowout and punched the Celtics back in Game 2, claiming a 111-97 victory in front of a stunned TD Garden to even the series at 1-1.
Here are the takeaways.
VJ Edgecombe changed the complexion of the game (and series)
The Sixers rookie made a statement in the team’s season opener against the Celtics, so Tuesday’s explosion may have looked uncomfortably familiar to Celtics fans who have been watching since the start of the year.
Edgecombe started strong, exploding to the rim for his first basket and knocking down a couple of mid-range jumpers before unloading a barrage of 3-pointers that helped the Sixers build a lead with a little breathing room before the half. He was quieter in the second half after putting up 21 in the first, but his triple with three minutes remaining was the dagger that sent many Celtics fans streaming for the exits.
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Edgecombe finished with 30 points on 12-for-20 shooting, including 6-for-10 from behind the arc, and — as a rookie — has dragged the Sixers back into contention in the series. We’ll get to the way the Celtics defended him next, but in his post-game comments, Jaylen Brown mentioned Edgecombe by name three times unprompted as he explained what went wrong for the Celtics.
“I thought Edgecombe was just too comfortable, and he built a rhythm and was just able to have an extreme impact on the game,” Brown said. “Also, he had six 3s, which, he’s a capable shooter.
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“We’ve just got to adjust and be ready to guard him. He’s a ball player. He’s a rookie but he can play. We’ve got to be better on him.”
The Celtics are going to struggle in drop coverage
Edgecombe wasn’t the only Sixers guard to explode. Tyrese Maxey went off in the fourth, scoring 12 of his 29 points in the final quarter as the Sixers pulled away.
The Sixers guards feasted on the Celtics’ drop coverage in the pick-and-roll, with bigs backed up behind the play to contain the drive while the Celtics guards tried to navigate the screen. Far too many of the Sixers’ 3-point attempts looked like this:
“I’m going to be honest, I think we all knew where the shots were going to come from,” Edgecombe said after the game. “We knew where we were going to get the shots from, where the help was going to be at.”
Joe Mazzulla called it “low-hanging fruit” to note the drop coverage, but no fruit could be hanging lower than Neemias Queta in the screenshot above, camped out at the free-throw line as Maxey navigated the Drummond screen and walked into an open triple. Both Maxey and Edgecombe enjoyed acres of space to operate with the Celtics’ bigs pinned back in the lane, and they both enjoyed all that space immensely.
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The Celtics have been really good at defending in drop coverage this year, but a couple of things are working against that strategy here.
First, Andre Drummond is an elite screener; Mazzulla called screening “one of the best things he does,” which felt appropriate.
Second, for all of his excellent defense this season, Derrick White struggled with Maxey in 1-on-1 matchups. Drummond’s screening added a second layer to those struggles.
Coming out of drop coverage is a difficult ask as well, since Maxey is too fast for Queta, and much too fast for Nikola Vucevic, who did not have a particularly good game.
“There’s obviously things that we’ll do differently next game, be ready to do differently next game, but at the same time, we have to be aware of what’s on the other side of that,” Mazzulla said.
As a team, the Sixers shot 19-for-39 (48.7 percent) from deep after going 4-for-23 in Game 1.
Two questionable shots by Jayson Tatum were costly
We have spent a lot of time writing about the wonders of Jayson Tatum’s return to the floor — and we will reiterate it really is something of a medical miracle that he is in this position — but that means we also need to acknowledge when he struggles.
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On Tuesday, Tatum had two particularly costly misses.
The first was with 7:37 remaining and the Celtics trailing by seven. The Celtics spent a surprising amount of time stuck around that range, struggling to dig themselves out of a relatively shallow hole due to their cold 3-point shooting (more on that in a minute), but, after Maxey missed a layup, Tatum grabbed the rebound and raced up the floor. With just Payton Pritchard on the offensive end with him and four Sixers around him, Tatum stopped and hoisted a very difficult 3-pointer that banged off the back rim.
One possession later, Tatum connected on a 3-pointer after an offensive rebound by Pritchard, and the Celtics managed to trim the lead to two. Maxey missed a 3-pointer, the Celtics got the rebound, TD Garden was rocking, and suddenly it looked like the Celtics might have a chance to steal the win after all.
Then, the Celtics ran eight seconds of an offensive set, and the ball found its way to Tatum on the wing. He launched another 3-pointer very quickly with a hand in his face and missed it badly short. On the next two possessions, Maxey buried 3-pointers out of the pick-and-roll against (you guessed it) drop coverage, and the lead was back to eight. The Celtics never seriously challenged again.
“Maxey just walked into two big threes back-to-back when we had cut the lead to two,” Brown said. “So we’ll watch it and see what we can be better at there, but that was two big momentum plays that helped them pull away.”
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Tiny margins can change a playoff game. If the Celtics scored on either of the aforementioned possessions that ended in mediocre looks early in the shot clock for Tatum, the game might have had a very different feel down the stretch.
Tatum finished with 19 points on 8-for-19 shooting to go with 14 rebounds and nine assists.
The Celtics couldn’t buy a bucket
Tatum certainly wasn’t alone in missing shots. The Celtics were a putrid 13-for-50 from 3-point range (26 percent). Tatum and Sam Hauser were both 2-for-8, Vucevic was 1-for-4, Pritchard was 0-for-4, and White was 2-for-10. Only Brown, who got hot in the second half, saved the Celtics from perhaps their worst shooting night of the season by going 5-for-12.
“We trust Payton. We trust Sam. We trust Baylor,” Brown said. “We trust all of those guys to come in and impact the game. We’ve just got to continue to stay consistent with that, and we’ll be okay.”
Mazzulla agreed with a reporter who asked if the missed shots put pressure on the defense.
“I thought we got great looks,” Mazzulla added. “I thought we missed them, and you look at it, 91-89, they go on a run, we missed a lot of good shots, and we don’t get them. You have to be able to score in close games against a team like that, and they made more shots on us down the stretch.”
Jaylen Brown scored a lot
The Celtics’ offensive struggles had very little to do with Brown, who finished with 36 points on 11-for-24 shooting. Brown’s 5-for-8 shooting from three in the second half helped, but he also got to the free-throw line 12 times while tallying seven rebounds and four assists.
Now it’s the Celtics’ turn for a gut check
The Sixers took a haymaker to the jaw in Game 1 and countered with a sharp jab.
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Now the Celtics need to show that they are made of sterner stuff than they looked in Game 2. The loss had shades of last year’s series against the Knicks prior to Tatum’s injury, as the Knicks stole both games in Boston when the Celtics went cold and blew double-digit leads. Game 3 suddenly looks uncomfortably important for a first-round series.
The Celtics, however, say they are up for it, and their playoff history suggests we can believe them.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Brown said. “I’m looking forward to the film session. We’re still learning and growing as a team, so these opportunities, you can look at it as a negative or you can look at it as a positive. So we’ll learn from it and then we’ll get back to Celtics basketball.”
Both Brown and Tatum, perhaps particularly Tatum, have had huge games against the Sixers in the playoffs before.
“Playoffs is a roller coaster,” Tatum said. “I think what I’ve learned throughout my nine years in the playoffs is just stay even-keeled throughout right? I think the team that sticks together and does that from an emotional standpoint will be fine.”
What’s next
The Celtics and Sixers have two days off before Friday’s game at Wells Fargo Arena, which will be on Amazon Prime — the third completely separate network in as many games — at 7 p.m. Game 4 will take place on Sunday at 7 p.m. before the series comes back to Boston on Tuesday.
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