BOSTON — Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla knew the Sixers were destined to turn things around as soon as Game 2 got underway at TD Garden on Tuesday night.
He called it before the opening tip.
“Tonight is going to be a much more difficult challenge,” Mazzulla said pregame. “I expect a better version of the Sixers, and we have to play better as well. Every game, series takes on a life of its own. You don’t have control over that. You just gotta control how you play, how you execute, and how you move
on from each timeout to timeout, each run to run, each game to game.”
Philadelphia, without Joel Embiid, laid an egg in Game 1. Coach Nick Nurse admitted the Sixers played “out of character” before falling in a 32-point blowout loss to the Celtics on Sunday. That made the message heading into Tuesday night simple: “Be better,” Nurse said. The difference between falling into an 0-2 deficit or returning to Philadelphia tied 1-1 was clear, and the Sixers operated mindful of that urgency throughout Boston’s 111-97 loss in Game 2.
Sixers guards Tyrese Maxey and V.J. Edgecombe combined to score 59 points, knocking down 11 of Philadelphia’s 19 3-pointers — after combining for 34 points in Game 1. Maxey got going early with 10 points in the first quarter, while Edgecombe found his rhythm with a 16-point second quarter.
For the Celtics, the shooting woes didn’t improve. Only Sam Hauser knocked down multiple 3-pointers by halftime, going 2-of-5 from deep, while Boston’s missed opportunities carried into the second half. That put added pressure on the defense to contain Maxey and Edgecombe for as long as possible while the offense tried to find its rhythm — but that breakthrough never came.
“You lose a quarter by 11 (points), that’s tough to come back from in a playoff game,” Mazzulla said.
The same Celtics team that led the league in fewest turnovers during the regular season (12.4 per game) committed 13 at home to Philadelphia’s nine.
Jaylen Brown (36 points) and Jayson Tatum (19 points) were the only Celtics to score in double figures. The next leading scorer, Nikola Vučević, provided nine points off the bench and was a minus-7 in over 18 minutes on the floor. Consistency was the biggest struggle for Boston. Even when they cut Philadelphia’s lead down to two points with over 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Celtics couldn’t add the finishing touch to ever gain control and take a second-half lead.
Instead, the Sixers closed out Game 2 on a 20-8 run, forcing Mazzulla to unload the bench and remove the starters for the final 1:52.
“There’s obviously things that we’ll do differently next game — be ready to do next game,” Mazzulla said. “But at the same time, we have to be aware of what’s on the other side of that. They’re a good team, and they put a ton of pressure on those things, and you kind of saw some of that tonight.”
The Sixers shot 34.9 percent from three in the regular season, ranking 23rd in the NBA. Their 12.3 made threes per game ranked 22nd, and Tuesday night’s 19 triples (on 48.7 percent shooting) were matched only three times all season.
Boston finished the loss shooting 36.4 percent from the field and 26 percent from three, hoisting 50 attempts from deep. In the regular season, they went 7-12 in games where they shot below 30 percent from beyond the arc, and it again helped the opposition — this time, Philadelphia — pull away with minimal resistance.
Rarely had the Celtics found themselves needing to self-reflect, but each time they did before Tuesday night, Brown was the first to speak up. That remained the case after the team’s first postseason hiccup.
“I just thought they outcompeted us tonight,” Brown said. “I think our intensity level could’ve been better. Defensively, we could’ve been better. We died on some screens. We just gotta be better. It’s the playoffs. They got ball players over there, and they came to play. And any given night, you can lose a game if you don’t come out with the right mindset.”
Tatum, after converting only two of eight 3-point attempts and committing three turnovers, still sounded composed. He pointed to his experience — his ninth trip to the playoffs — noting that losing home-court advantage was nothing new. Last year in the semifinals against the Knicks, after dropping the first two games at home, Tatum and the Celtics bounced back at Madison Square Garden. And this past season, the team went 20–6 in games following a loss.
That track record reinforced his confidence with the series heading to Philadelphia.
“We’ll be better next game,” Tatum assured.
Tatum also backed sharpshooters Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, who combined to go 2-of-14 from three (14.2 percent) in Game 2. White (eight points) and Pritchard (four points) each had rare off nights, muting two of Boston’s most reliable offensive weapons. Still, given the looks Boston generated, Tatum isn’t concerned about their shooting slumps carrying over into Game 3 on Friday night.
“There’s a lot of open looks and looks that they normally make,” Tatum said of White and Pritchard. “I don’t know how many they made this year, but I remember last year both those guys made 250-plus threes. So they’re great shooters. Sometimes the ball just don’t go in, but we never lose confidence in them. They’ll be ready, we’ll all be ready Friday.”
