Washington (United States) (AFP) – Joel Embiid scored 34 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to propel the Philadelphia 76ers to a 109-100 victory over Boston that eliminated the Celtics from the NBA playoffs on Saturday. Tyrese Maxey scored 10 of his 30 points in a frantic fourth quarter as the seventh-seeded Sixers thwarted the second-seeded Celtics’ comeback bid, completing their own comeback from 3-1 down in the series to book an Eastern Conference semi-final showdown with the New York Knicks.
The series was the 23rd playoff clash between the two teams, and Boston had won the last six, knocking Embiid out of the playoffs in 2018, 2020, and 2023. Embiid had said he was tired of losing to the Celtics, and he and Maxey made sure it didn’t happen again, keying the 76ers’ first-ever victory in a series in which they trailed 3-1. “We had a talk after game five and just said, ‘Hey, man, we can’t let the same stuff happen over and over and over again. At some point we’ve got to put a stop to it.’ And we did,” Maxey told broadcaster NBC.
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It wasn’t a smooth ride, even with Boston missing star Jayson Tatum, who was ruled out less than two hours before tip-off with a sore left knee. Tatum had exited late in the third quarter of Thursday’s game-six blowout loss to the Sixers, and he could only watch from the bench as the Celtics’ season ended. Tatum, who ruptured his right Achilles tendon in last year’s playoffs, had missed the first 62 games of the regular season but had gone from strength to strength since his season debut in March.
Jaylen Brown scored 34 points and pulled down nine rebounds to lead the Celtics, and Derrick White added 26 points. But Boston connected on just 13 of 49 three-point attempts and were playing catch-up all night after the 76ers pushed their lead to as many as 15 in the first quarter. Boston clawed back and took a one-point lead midway through the second period, but they couldn’t maintain momentum.
Up by five at halftime, the 76ers pulled away again in the third quarter and led by 13 going into the final frame. Boston made a final push, cutting the deficit to one point multiple times in the fourth quarter to ignite the crowd at TD Garden Arena, but they couldn’t get over the hump. Maxey scored eight straight points to push Philadelphia’s lead to 107-98, and the Sixers closed it out despite a scare for the oft-injured Embiid, who came up limping after a knock to the knee.
“Just playing hard,” Embiid said of the key to victory. “We started off well and then in the second quarter we kind of relaxed a little. Same thing with the start of the fourth. But we stuck together, closed it out,” said Embiid, who underwent an emergency appendectomy less than a month ago. “It’s about playing hard.”
Boston’s three straight defeats marked their first three-game skid since they opened the season 0-3 back in October. Brown, who added four assists and three blocked shots, said the Celtics could be proud of a season in which they were widely expected to tread water without Tatum. “Great season,” Brown said. “Obviously it didn’t finish the way we would have liked. I give credit to Philadelphia. I watched them get better as the playoffs went on. Tonight we came up a little bit short…but nothing for our team to hang our head over.”
© 2024 AFP
