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The Celtics are on the brink after 76ers take Game 6: 7 takeaways
Jayson Tatum left Thursday's game and did not return, though he says he isn't overly concerned.
Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers pushed the Celtics to the brink with a 106-93 victory in Game 6, sending the first-round series back to Boston for Game 7.
Here are the takeaways.
The Celtics are reeling.
After Payton Pritchard went off and the Celtics blew out the Sixers in Game 4 — a game that now feels like it happened months ago but in reality was played on Friday — the messaging was consistent across the board: The series is not over yet.
Jaylen Brown said there were “no guarantees.”
Joe Mazzulla stuck to his favorite talking point, telling reporters that you “can’t have an expectation” that a game or a series is supposed to go a certain way.
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But of all the Celtics, Jayson Tatum’s comments on the matter may have been the most prescient.
“Nine years in the playoffs, it never goes how you think it’s going to go,” Tatum said. “However long it takes, four, six, five, seven games, just be prepared to do whatever it takes for however long it takes.”
The Celtics better be prepared, because after threatening to close the Sixers out in five games, they are suddenly flailing their arms like Wile E. Coyote after realizing he just ran off a cliff. There were hints of competence and confidence early in the game — Derrick White hit two 3s! Tatum nailed a couple of pull-ups! The Celtics shot 40 percent from 3 in the first half! — but the shooting crashed in the second half, and the offense devolved into an ugly, choppy brand of basketball.
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There are seemingly limitless questions to be asked. Why have the Celtics shortened their rotation this much when they played so well as a team during the regular season? Why is Jaylen Brown struggling so much (and why did officials let him push off throughout the regular season only to start calling them now)? Why did the shooting dry up? Why did the Celtics grab just eight offensive rebounds? Why is Neemias Queta committing so many fouls? Why haven’t the Celtics tried going small, especially as Nikola Vucevic continues to struggle? Perhaps most concerning: What happened to Jayson Tatum, who went to the locker room for “stretching and treatment” and never returned to the game?
The Celtics look discouraged, exhausted, and out of answers. That could change quickly in Game 7, especially if they catch a heater (remember: “it never goes how you think it’s going to go”), but at the moment, the Celtics do not look like a confident, happy team.
“We have an opportunity to play Game 7 at home,” Mazzulla said. “There’s been great teams, great players that have played in Game 7s. It’s part of the journey. So we didn’t play well tonight, and we move on to the next game.”
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All of that is true. A win is certainly possible. Momentum is fickle in the postseason, and the Celtics know that as well as anyone.
But Celtics fans would be excused for feeling, at best, a little queasy.
The Sixers are rolling.
Meanwhile, on the other end, the Sixers seem to have discovered a balance.
Joel Embiid’s return in Game 4 looked like a gift to the Celtics at first, but he has rallied and is now playing like his old self. He’s attracting double-teams and dishing happily to his talented teammates. He appears to have let go of his ball-dominant tendencies, which means that even on a night when he was 6-for-18 from the floor, he was an unequivocal positive with 10 rebounds and eight assists.
Tyrese Maxey is stepping fully into his role as the team’s 1A superstar, and he scored a game-high 30 on Thursday. The Celtics still can’t contain his combination of lightning-quick speed and 3-point shooting.
Paul George looks rejuvenated on both ends. He finished with 23 points on 17 shots, and he has put together some of the biggest defensive sequences of the series.
The Sixers’ offense has gotten so comfortable, they scored on back-to-back behind-the-back passes early in the third quarter as Wells Fargo Arena exploded.
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“We’ve got to break it,” Jaylen Brown said. “Their comfort level is higher right now. Their confidence is high right now. They got a different swag to them, and we’ve got to take that.”
Mazzulla said the Sixers have found an identity, and the Celtics need to adjust to it.
“I mean, we haven’t played that well, and they’ve played well,” Mazzulla said. “I think obviously the series has changed once Embiid came back, so you have to take a look at that.”
Jaylen Brown had a brutal game.
For the second game in a row, Brown appeared to get caught up in trying to do too much as the Celtics’ offense sputtered and ground to a halt.
Brown spent much of the first half on the bench with foul trouble, finishing with 18 points on 7-for-17 shooting. He never really appeared to be getting to his spots the way he did in the regular season, and he turned the ball over five times, goaded into mistakes by Kelly Oubre and Paul George. Brown’s off arm is suddenly a topic of intense scrutiny by the officials, and he has looked shaken by the 10 offensive fouls that were whistled against him.
“I got nothing for you,” Brown said when asked about it in his post-game presser, after a lengthy pause.
Brown admitted that the foul trouble took him out of his rhythm, which he said “can’t happen.”
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He added that the Celtics played into the Sixers’ game plan for them.
“I definitely think, even myself, the type of shots, the type of things they want us to do, that’s not what we’ve been doing all year,” Brown said. “But maybe a shift in your approach can open some stuff up offensively for us. I think that’s what we need, the need for me to be dynamic. The need for me to put pressure on the rim and be aggressive.”
Jayson Tatum plans to play in Game 7.
Tatum dealt with stiffness in his left leg, which was not the leg that ended his season last year.
Still, the stiffness was significant enough to send him to the locker room during the third quarter, where he received “treatment,” according to Mazzulla.
After the game, Tatum said he plans to play in Game 7.
“I wasn’t, like, overly concerned,” he said. “S***, I came out at four minutes like I was supposed to and just kind of assessed the game, and they took the starters out fairly early in the fourth quarter. So yeah, it was not like that big of a deal.”
Tatum, obviously, knows his body better than we do, although a trip to the locker room for treatment does feel notable.
He finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds in 28 minutes.
The Celtics shot below 30 percent from 3 (again).
After shooting 40 percent from deep in the first half, the Celtics missed 11 straight triples in the third quarter before Luka Garza finally broke the drought in the fourth.
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This time, nearly everybody except Derrick White was a culprit — White, who has struggled massively from the field, finished 3-for-6. Tatum and Brown were both 2-for-6, Pritchard was 1-for-8, Sam Hauser was 1-for-5, and Vucevic was 0-for-2.
The Sixers have made some adjustments, and Embiid’s return is clearly a big difference maker, but the Celtics have now shot sub-30 percent in three games this series, and they’ve lost all three of them.
The Game 7 adjustments might be pretty simple.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to have to make some shots from three,” Pritchard said. “And obviously, I played a part in that tonight. You’ve got to hit shots to win.”
The bench outperformed the starters late.
With the starters lagging, Mazzulla pulled everyone and put an all-bench lineup on the floor: Pritchard, Garza, Ron Harper Jr., Baylor Scheierman, and Jordan Walsh.
The Stay Ready group was, in fact, ready, and they even pushed the Sixers a bit — cutting the lead to 14 before the Sixers put the game away.
“Just wanted to give the game a different feel,” Mazzulla said. “I think all year we’ve had 14, 15 guys be able to impact winning, and just wanted to give the game a different look.”
What’s next
After the game, a reporter asked Mazzulla if a Game 7 just comes down to who wants it more.
“I think exactly,” Mazzulla said. “You said it best. I couldn’t say any better. Good line.”
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The Celtics and Sixers will tip off on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
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