Game Seven. Two of the most heart-pumping words in all of sports. Under any circumstances, the Philadelphia 76ers playing a win-or-go-home game with the season on the line would make for an edge-of-your-seat viewing experience. However, tonight has the added element of coming against the rival Boston Celtics, with all of the history that entails. The Sixers haven’t eliminated Boston from the playoffs in my lifetime; 1982 was the last time Philadelphia sent the Celtics home packing. Meanwhile, in the 21st
century alone, the Celtics have ended the Sixers’ season five times, including three times during the Process era. A win tonight would exorcise a lot of demons and be talked about for years to come, regardless of what happened in a second round and beyond.
We’ve taken an improbable road to get here. Boston went up 3-1 in this series, with a pair of 32-point victories in Games 1 and 4 that were frankly embarrassing from a Sixers perspective. Everyone was shoveling dirt on the Sixers’ season and wondering what the postmortem fallout would be from a roster and organizational perspective. All we asked was Philadelphia to show a bit of fight, like we saw in the Game 2 win and the close Game 3 defeat. Get dragged off kicking and screaming rather than meekly accepting your tickets to Cabo and filing off quietly.
Instead, something clicked in the second half of Game 5 and the Sixers discovered their identity. They’ve been a connected, disruptive defensive group, playing stout, one-on-one defense against Boston’s ball handlers to reduce the number of open perimeter looks that come as a product of overhelping. The work on the glass has improved, even winning the rebounding battle in Game 5. The offense looks cohesive, with Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe still attacking and not excessively deferring to Joel Embiid, and Paul George shifting effortlessly between tertiary floor spacer and guy who can create his own shots in isolation as needed. The previous two wins didn’t seem fluky or a result of shooting variance. Across the last five quarters, the Sixers flat-out looked like the better basketball team.
Of course, things could flip back just as easily. I would expect a team with the championship pedigree of the Celtics to have a better gameplan and effort than what we saw in Game 6. Jayson Tatum tweaked his calf in that loss, but the Celtics once again have a clean injury report heading into the series finale. Joe Mazzulla probably found an adjustment to make watching The Town for the 84th time. Jaylen Brown had time to watch some film and rediscover an offensive move that isn’t stiff-arming defenders in the chest. Boston won 56 games for a reason this season, and that was without Tatum for most of it.
So that’s the stage. Complete the 3-1 series comeback and this Sixers group will be heroes. The Team That Finally Beat Boston, on a level with the 2007 Phillies who came back to catch the Mets to win the division. These last two wins have taken us from Acceptance, back into a place where we dared to dream again. A loss now would be an all-too-familiar brand of heartbreak. We’ll find out whether it’s heroes or heartbreak tonight.
Game Details
When: May 2, 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: TD Garden, Boston, MA
Watch: NBC, Peacock
Radio: 97.5 The Fanatic
Follow: @LibertyBallers
