Sports rivalries rule. I grew up during the early-2000s Red Sox-Yankees battles. I’ll never forget swinging from the absolute heartbreak of Aaron Boone’s home run in 2003 to complete euphoria the following October, when the Sox cowboyed up, erased a 3-0 deficit and finally broke the curse.
I also got to experience the Celtics-Lakers rivalry returning to the NBA Finals in 2008 and 2010, when the animosity between the teams and their fans felt almost as important as the basketball itself. Those games
were appointment television, and I’m still fiending for another Celtics-Lakers Finals.
The NBA has produced some incredible rivalries throughout its history, but it feels like fewer of them have much staying power anymore. Players are constantly switching teams, contenders fall apart and yesterday’s bitter enemies become tomorrow’s podcast guests. Sometimes we’re told two teams are rivals simply because the league scheduled them on Christmas or they’re playing during Rivals Week, presented by Amazon Web Services. Because nothing screams genuine hatred like a comprehensive cloud computing platform.
Anyway, the Boston Celtics play the Philadelphia 76ers tonight.
In the lead-up, I’ve been thinking about what makes a great NBA rivalry and how many of those ingredients are present in the current relationship between Boston and Philadelphia. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that we’re watching one of the league’s oldest rivalries return to something resembling its best form.
Joel Embiid famously declared back in 2018 that Celtics-Sixers wasn’t much of a rivalry because Boston kept beating Philadelphia. Eight years and one particularly painful playoff series later, I think it’s worth revisiting his assessment.
I’ve settled on four criteria for evaluating a proper NBA rivalry, and Boston and Philadelphia are about to receive their entirely unofficial rivalry report card.
A history of hatred
You can’t manufacture decades of bad blood, and Boston and Philadelphia have enough to fill a small museum. Ideally one with separate entrances for fans of each team.
The Celtics and Sixers have met in 23 playoff series, more than any other pairing in NBA history. Boston holds a 15-8 advantage, with some of basketball’s greatest players participating in the ongoing effort to make the other franchise miserable.
It started with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, when Boston spent much of the 1960s blocking Wilt’s path to a championship. Philadelphia finally broke through in 1967, ending the Celtics’ run of eight consecutive titles.
Then came Larry Bird and Julius Erving, and an entirely new generation of reasons for the cities to dislike each other. The teams met in four Eastern Conference finals during the 1980s, splitting them 2-2. The 1981 series was particularly ridiculous, with Boston overcoming a 3-1 deficit and winning the final three games by a combined five points. Five!
And, of course, there was the infamous fight between Bird and Dr. J on November 9, 1984, which just celebrated its 42nd anniversary. Bird had already scored 42 points when things got ugly in the third quarter, with Moses Malone restraining him as Erving landed several punches.
Erving later explained his attitude toward playing Boston rather succinctly: “I don’t care if it’s your mother, you’re not supposed to get along.” I appreciate that level of commitment to the rivalry. Erving family dinners must have been interesting.
At that time, Philadelphia even had a player nicknamed the Boston Strangler. Andrew Toney earned the name by repeatedly torching the Celtics, including a 34-point performance in Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference finals that sent Boston home.
Imagine being so consistently good at ruining another team’s season that people start calling you the Boston Strangler. I’d have that printed on my business cards.
The beauty of this history is that it never really goes away. The players change, coaches come and go, and special-edition uniforms occasionally make us nauseous, but the relationship survives.
For a younger Celtics fan, tonight might be their first real introduction to the rivalry. Meanwhile, somewhere in Philadelphia, there’s probably a grandfather who still refuses to allow anyone named Larry into his house.
What a time to get involved. There’s nearly eighty years of basketball history waiting for you, and both teams have recently supplied plenty of new material.
Grade: A
Recent playoff scars
For a long time, Boston fans had a pretty comfortable relationship with Philadelphia.
Remember Embiid’s assessment from 2018? Following another loss to Boston, he famously said, “This is not a rivalry…they always kick our ass.”
He wasn’t wrong. Boston eliminated Philadelphia in six consecutive playoff meetings between 1985 and 2023.
The most memorable recent example came in 2023, when Jayson Tatum scored 51 points in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, setting the NBA’s Game 7 scoring record at the time. Celtics fans celebrated while Sixers fans contemplated another year of trusting the process.
May 2026 changed things.
After Boston built a 3-1 series lead in the first round, Philadelphia won three straight games and completed the comeback with a 109-100 victory at TD Garden. Before that series, Boston had been 32-0 when leading a playoff series 3-1. Philadelphia had never overcome that deficit in 18 previous attempts.
Both streaks ended on the same night.
For Celtics fans, it was a miserable way to end a season already defined by uncertainty surrounding Tatum’s Achilles recovery. The Sixers, who’d spent years being reminded of their playoff failures against Boston, finally got to celebrate on the parquet.
And that’s precisely what this rivalry needed, however gut-wrenching it is to admit. A rivalry becomes a lot less interesting when one team wins every meaningful matchup. Eventually, the winning side starts treating the opponent like a routine trip to the barber shop.
Philadelphia’s comeback changed the dynamic.
Sixers fans now have a recent series in which their team delivered one of the most painful postseason defeats in Boston’s history. On the flip side, Celtics fans can point to decades of superiority, but that doesn’t make the most recent result any less irritating.
Both fan bases have something to bring up and something they’d desperately prefer the other forget.
Top-notch rivalry material.
I’m stopping short of an A because I’d like to see the teams trade a few more meaningful blows before declaring this an entirely balanced postseason feud. Preferably with Boston getting the next one.
Grade: A-
Personal history
We’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time discussing the relationship between Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown since Boston traded Brown to Philadelphia.
At this point, the alleged beef has been stirred, sautéed, broiled, slow-cooked and served with several unnecessary side dishes. I’m sure a script is in the works to turn the story into a limited series.
The latest round of questions came this week as the former teammates prepared to face each other for the first time. Brown told CelticsBlog’s Bobby Manning that the two had nothing to discuss before tipoff, while Tatum has continued emphasizing that he’d rather focus on basketball.
I think I’m ready to join them.
Tatum and Brown spent nine seasons together in Boston. They became perennial All-Stars, reached two NBA Finals and won a championship together in 2024. Whatever their relationship looks like today, I’d rather celebrate what they accomplished than spend another afternoon interpreting Brown’s cryptic comments.
Besides, the actual basketball matchup is much more enjoyable to dream about.
Will they guard each other? If they do, how much does their familiarity help? They’ve spent almost a decade practicing together, studying film together and learning how to attack defenses alongside one another. They know each other’s habits, preferred spots and tendencies better than most opponents ever could.
Does that make defending each other easier, or do two players with that much shared experience become even more difficult to predict?
That’s the part I’m excited to watch.
And somehow LeBron James has managed to find his way into this episode, too. At this point, we’re approaching Avengers-level crossover territory.
LeBron spent years tormenting Boston during his Cleveland and Miami tenures. Now he’s wearing a Sixers jersey alongside Brown, Embiid and Maxey, as though Philadelphia deliberately assembled a collection of Boston’s greatest supervillains.
Meanwhile, Paul George is enjoying an excellent start in Boston after two difficult seasons with Philadelphia. His ability to operate alongside Tatum has been one of the Celtics’ most encouraging early developments, and he’ll have his own familiar faces waiting on the other side tonight.
There are enough connections here to keep the NBA’s broadcast crew occupied for several hours. I’m just hoping we spend most of that time discussing how these players might actually compete against each other.
Grade: A-
Actual competitive stakes
This might be the most important ingredient of all.
You can have decades of history and a roster full of former teammates, but the rivalry loses some appeal when one team is spending March counting down the days until its season ends.
The best NBA rivalries have stakes. Both teams need to be good enough that beating the other feels meaningful, preferably with a legitimate chance they’ll meet again when the games matter most.
Through the first few weeks of the 2026-27 season, Boston and Philadelphia have certainly held up their ends of that arrangement.
The Sixers enter tonight at 9-2, sitting atop the Eastern Conference. Boston is right behind them at 8-2, having won three straight games, including Sunday’s 117-97 victory over Milwaukee.
Philadelphia has quickly found success with its shiny new roster. Brown is averaging more than 22 points per game, while Maxey continues to be a nightmare for opposing defenses. Embiid remains an enormous problem whenever he’s healthy, and LeBron gives the Sixers an ageless playmaker who has spent a good chunk of his life learning how to beat Boston.
The Celtics have started impressively despite undergoing significant changes themselves.
Tatum has returned to playing at an All-NBA level following his Achilles injury. George has fit beautifully alongside him, and Boston’s supporting cast is beginning to settle into its new responsibilities. Joe Mazzulla has even started hugging people during games, a sign that either things are going well or the end times are near.
Tonight will be our first regular-season opportunity to see how these particular rosters match up.
Boston has to contend with Maxey’s speed and Embiid’s presence inside. Brown and George could find themselves defending one another, while Tatum’s developing partnership with George faces one of its toughest tests yet.
There’s plenty to examine beyond the inevitable pregame questions about who plans to shake whose hand.
And while I don’t want to get ahead of myself ten games into the season, it’s difficult to look at these rosters without imagining another playoff meeting in the near future.
If that happens, tonight could be the beginning of another particularly memorable chapter in a rivalry that already has a lot of unforgettable ones.
Grade: A
The final report card
- Historical hatred: A
- Recent playoff scars: A-
- Personal history: A-
- Actual competitive stakes: A
- Overall rivalry grade: A
The history is there, Philadelphia has finally given Boston a reason to seek revenge, and the player storylines have somehow become more complicated than the plot of an HBO drama.
What we haven’t seen is how all of that translates onto the court with these particular rosters.
Maybe tonight ends up being an ordinary basketball game. It’s certainly possible Tatum and Brown exchange a quick handshake, everybody behaves like responsible adults, and the teams play 48 minutes without providing a single controversial quote.
At this point, that would probably be healthy for everyone involved.
Personally, I’m hoping for an excellent game with a little competitive nastiness. I wouldn’t mind seeing Pritchard or Scheierman give Embiid a hard time after an inevitable flop. Maybe Anfernee Simons will have words for the Celtics coaching staff after burying a three in front of their bench.
After years of Boston getting the better of this rivalry, Philadelphia finally has something to brag about. I can’t think of a better way to welcome the rivalry back than having the two teams actually play each other.
Just preferably with the Celtics winning.
