Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum arrived at the free-throw line with 10:39 left in the fourth quarter in Sunday night’s Game 4 against the Philadelphia 76ers. There, his seventh foul shot gave the C’s a 30-point lead and sparked a tide-turn at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
We want Boston! We want Boston!
Celtics fans who made the trip to Philadelphia followed the same script as in Game 1, co-opting the Sixers’ play-in tournament chant and using it as their own for the second time this series. For a moment,
without looking into the stands or at the colors on the floor, it almost felt like Tatum and company weren’t in Philadelphia. Celtics fans had brought TD Garden to the City of Brotherly Love — something few fan bases in sports can do.
“It’s just another luxury,” Tatum told reporters after Boston’s 128-96 Game 4 win over Philadelphia, per CLNS Media. “Being a part of the most winningest franchise in NBA history, the amount of fans that we have, and how well they travel, is just something I’ve been fortunate enough to experience my entire career. You understand it’s not like that everywhere else. So it’s great to be a part of.”
The same way the Celtics seized their moment to take a commanding 3-1 series lead, Boston fans surrounded by Philadelphia’s rowdiest, relished their chance to taunt the Sixers right back. Seats previously occupied by fans sporting blue and red Sixers gear quickly became empty chairs, allowing those proudly wearing Celtics green to stand out. Nearly eight minutes after Tatum’s charity stripe trip that sparked the earlier roar, Boston fans did it again with 2:48 left in regulation.
We want Boston! We want Boston!
The chants returned for a second and final time, as the starters took a seat and the reserves took the floor. It was as if the Celtics barged through the Sixers’ door, kicked their feet up, and made themselves at home with little to no resistance.
Philadelphia threw in the towel, and Boston’s traveling crowd took notice. They made sure to remind the Sixers of what awaits them Tuesday night back at TD Garden.
Jaylen Brown credited the fan base as an off-court contributor to the team’s performance.
“It’s great for us,” Brown told reporters, per CLNS Media. “I think momentum and energy all add up to be able to sway things into your favor or not. So just being able to have a Celtics fan base that’s great, that travels well, that gives us that energy even when we’re on the road, is very helpful.”
Brown pushed for urgency in Boston’s locker room, revealing that the Celtics held a brief discussion before Game 3 after losing home-court advantage in Game 2. The message — to treat Game 3 like Game 7 — was simple, but it resonated. From that point on, the Celtics didn’t succumb to comfort. They didn’t play with their food. They made adjustments, flipped the script on Philadelphia, and took back control of the series. On Sunday, that energy shift carried from the court to the stands and helped Boston rob Philadelphia of its home-court advantage.
In the first quarter, the Celtics made it clear they weren’t going back to Boston without a 3-1 lead.
Payton Pritchard set the tone, scoring 13 points off the bench in the opening frame. Then in the second quarter, while continuing to power Boston’s second unit, the Celtics’ reserves matched Philadelphia’s total output with 32 points of their own. In the final seconds of the first half, the Sixers double-teamed and fouled Pritchard before he could get a shot off, and right before the clock hit zero.
Instead, the buzzer-beating maestro finished with a game-high 32 points, leaving him just four shy of breaking Kevin McHale’s franchise playoff record for most points scored by a Celtics reserve in a game (35).
“It’s a pride thing, representing the city of Boston,” Pritchard told reporters, per CLNS Media. “So we play with that pride, and it’s a hard-nosed city, so we want to carry that.”
The Celtics were so locked in that they broke a franchise playoff record by knocking down 24 threes — falling only two shy of the NBA record set by the Cleveland Cavaliers (25) in 2016.
A total of 10 different Celtics contributed at least one 3-pointer as the team shot 45.3 percent from deep for the night. Finding the hot hand from beyond the arc and playing Mazzulla-ball helped separate Boston from Philadelphia. It allowed the Celtics to build multiple double-digit leads that stretched beyond 20 points several times from the second quarter on, before reaching 32 at the final buzzer.
Boston understood that with Joel Embiid back on the floor for Philadelphia, it was time to up the intensity and make the contest as difficult for the Sixers as possible.
“That was huge,” Tatum said. “Especially that three, four-minute spurt in the first quarter. (Nikola) Vooch, Baylor (Scheierman) and J. Walsh, when those guys came in, that run that we went on at the end of the first was huge. And we just continued to carry that throughout. Obviously, the game is easier when you hit shots, but it was just how we got those shots: second and third-chance opportunities. It’s just a big boost for your team when you get those opportunities.”
By the time the Celtics had grabbed their eighth offensive rebound, the Sixers hadn’t recorded their first. By the time the Celtics reached 10 second-chance points, the Sixers were still scoreless in that category. Boston attacked those margins the best way they’ve known how since the start of the season back in October: through a collective team effort.
“That’s Celtic basketball: to play harder, play with more effort, play together, more togetherness, trust each other, and that’s what we did tonight,” Brown said.
Boston became the first team in the Eastern Conference to take a 3-1 series lead and can become the first to punch their ticket and advance to the semifinals. After leaving TD Garden with the series split through the first two games, the Celtics return home for a potential Game 5 clincher Tuesday night, having made up for their Game 2 hiccup with a successful two-game road trip.
