Boston Celtics
This sweet surprise of a season is over, sooner than it should have been, and it was ended by a 76ers team that was in the play-in.
Jaylen Brown delivered an All-NBA caliber season, but his 33 points on Saturday weren’t enough for Boston to take down Philadelphia. Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
May 4, 2026 | 7:23 AM
4 minutes to read
On this, the day after the 2025-26 Celtics season abruptly ended with a 109-100 loss to the Sixers in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series, let’s dig in to good, the bad, and the ugly of a good season that ended, uh, rather bad and ugly …
The good: In a supposed “gap” year, the Celtics managed to win 56 games (including 30 at TD Garden) and earn the second-seed in the conference playoffs. They did it with Jaylen Brown (33 points in Game 7) providing a first-team All-NBA caliber season, Derrick White (26 points, including 19 in the first half) doing a lot of everything, Payton Pritchard becoming a certified bucket, and an extremely likable cast of hard-playing role players coming through when they were called upon. Considering most of us figured these Celtics would make the play-in at best, the regular season counted as a sweet surprise.
The bad: Welp, this sweet surprise of a season is over, sooner than it should have been, and it was ended by a 76ers team that was in the play-in. As dreadful as it is that the Celtics blew a lost a series after taking a 3-1 lead for the first time in their history, it is understandable how it happened.
For someone who falls over dramatically onto the parquet and waits for the whistle every time someone in back office in TD Garden turns their desk fan up to “high,” Joel Embiid is as close to unstoppable as it gets when he’s feeling right enough. When Embiid is dominating, Paul George is playing like he had another nice weekend chilling at the Fountain of Youth, and Tyrese Maxey is stepping on the accelerator, it’s easy to make the case that Philly was the more talented team by a decent margin by series’ end.
Joel Embiid blocks a Derrick White shot in the first half. – Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
The ugly: Credit to Philly aside, the Celtics blew this, and it’s a tired habit of theirs, at least in seasons when they don’t win the championship. The Celtics were up 3-1 in this series and led by 13 points in the second half of Game 5. Last year, they blew 20-point leads to the Knicks in the first two games of a series that they lost in six. Three years ago, they seemed to take the Heat as a pushover and lost the first three games of that series before falling in seven. I get annoyed by the phrase “playing with their food,” essentially a euphemism for losing focus. When the Celtics are feeling good about themselves, my goodness do these guys play with their food. Especially you, Jaylen.
The good: Jayson Tatum came back from an Achilles tear 298 days after suffering the terrible injury, averaged 21.8 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 5.3 assists in 16 regular-season games, and look way closer on most nights to his five-time All-NBA self that anyone had a right to expect.
The bad: Three of past four years, Tatum has been injured during the playoff series that ended the Celtics season. Remember, they had no shot in that Game 7 against the Heat in 2023 after he rolled his ankle on the first possession.
The ugly: Tatum, also a frequent food-player when things are looking easy, didn’t play Saturday night because of what the Celtics called a stiff knee, but c’mon now. Everyone saw him depart Game 6 with what sure looked like a calf injury, and that must have legitimately scared him considering calf issues often portend Achilles’ injuries. If it was the calf, it was 100 percent the right call for the good of Tatum and the franchise for him to sit. Of course, that is not going to stop the usual suspects in Boston sports radio from questioning his toughness on Monday. Podcasts, people. Listen to podcasts.
The good: Joe Mazzulla tried some new things with the lineup in Game 7!
The bad: These new things didn’t really work, other than the overdue decision to have Nikola Vucevic spend the entirety of the game in the honorary Eric Fernsten Backup-To-The-Backup Center Seat way down at the end of the bench. Mazzulla started Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh, and Ron Harper Jr., which I liked. But that trio, plus Hugo Gonzalez (who did give the Celtics a spark during a 16-2 run, at least) and Luka Garza, had no points among them in 53 combined minutes. That’s hard to do.
The ugly: Remember that game in January, when the Celtics were trying to help Sam Hauser set the team record for 3-pointers made in a game, and he went cold late and ended up hoisting up 21 3s without getting the record? That’s pretty much what the collective Celtics’ offense looked like at its worst in this series. The Celtics shot 13 for 49 from 3 in Game 7, 12 for 41 in Game 6, and 11 for 39 in Game 5. And their season ended with one last Heaving of the Bricks ceremony, missing eight straight shots after cutting the Sixers lead to 99-98 with 3 minutes, 49 seconds left. It was an ugly ending. And as enjoyable as this Celtics season was, let’s just head into the offseason by acknowledging that it was not exactly the least-fitting way for it to end. I’ll miss ‘em, though. It’s better than watching the Red Sox.
Chad Finn
Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.
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