The Boston Celtics were up 3-1. They had all the momentum in the world. And then, the Philadelphia 76ers struck.
A hard-fought late-game effort wasn’t enough in Game 7. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey proved to be too much for the Jayson Tatum-less Celtics to handle.
The Celtics have been eliminated from the playoffs. Here are some ups and downs.
Down: First-three-quarters Jaylen Brown
This was the team Jaylen Brown led to a 56-win regular season. With Tatum out, this was the group Brown helped sit atop the Eastern Conference standings for most of the year.
Yet when the lights were at their brightest, Brown didn’t meet the moment.
Turnovers and a sloppy handle plagued the start of his night. His defense left much to be desired, as the Sixers routinely got by him.
And outside of a few pockets of the Brown that will inevitably finish top five (or so) in MVP voting, he completely fell apart.
Even when Brown tried to guard Embiid in the second half, it failed. He couldn’t stick with him, and on the other end, he tried to will Boston to victory himself instead of sticking to the offensive process.
Brown enjoyed a ton of success this season. But his last few games will inevitably leave a bad taste in the mouths of many.
By the time his impressive fourth-quarter stretch came around, it was too late.
Game 6 was as lifeless as this Boston Celtics team looked all year. They were a shell of the team that stormed through the regular season with heart, hustle, and a never-say-die attitude.
In Game 7, they brought that attitude back.
A starting lineup of Brown, Derrick White, Baylor Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr., and Luka Garza failed to put points on the board. But it certainly set the tone.
They fought hard, crashing the offensive glass and pushing the pace whenever the game allowed.
Hugo Gonzalez‘s entrance into the fold provided some additional energy, too.
It wasn’t always pretty, but the Game 7 Celtics played hard, if nothing else.
Down: Stopping Joel Embiid
Boston had no answer. In fact, it had nothing close to an answer. Everything the Celtics tried to throw Embiid’s way failed miserably.
Early in the game, the Celtics sent double-teams. Embiid found cutting teammates for easy dunks under the basket.
They tried playing him one-on-one with Neemias Queta or Garza. Embiid got right through them, too.
As the game went on, Brown, Scheierman, and Gonzalez all tried their hand at stopping Embiid, all to no avail.
He was a force to be reckoned with throughout the entire series, and after years of losing to Boston, Embiid finally got his revenge.
White was brutal the entire series. His shot completely escaped him. But in the first half of Saturday night’s game, White gave the Celtics hope.
He was the only player who found any offensive success. His shot returned to form. He was flying around on defense. He was making hustle plays.
The guy who Celtics fans fell in love with for the past five years returned in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately, White’s magic touch was mystically taken away in the third quarter, as he missed wide-open looks that could have helped Boston get out of the hole it created for itself.
Even though he missed some big-time shots, White seemed like the only guy who consistently made a positive impact in Game 7. At least, up until the fourth quarter.
There are going to be a lot of
