5 things to Watch for in Celtics-Sixers and a series prediction

A look at five areas to watch leading into the Celtics-Sixers playoff opener on Monday night in Orlando:

1. How do the Celtics defend Joel Embiid? It’s going to take a team effort to get this done with four shooters surrounding the All-Star at all times on the perimeter.

“We just have to do our job; everybody has to do their job,” said Jaylen Brown. “Embiid is a one-of-a-kind type of talent that you don’t see very often. We have to do our job, our best to slow him down and [make him] have a tough night. He’s going to come out and dominate and own space and we’ve got to execute our game plan and hopefully he has an off night, an off couple of nights.”

Without Ben Simmons in the fold eating up spacing down low, the Sixers have already made it clear where their plan of attack will be for Game 1.

“We have the most dominant big man in the game, using Joel on the block and having him go to work,” Tobias Harris said Sunday. “That’s about all the intel I can give you right now.”

The Celtics will have 18 fouls to throw at Embiid in the form of Daniel Theis, Enes Kanter and Rob Williams over 48 minutes a night, but who takes up the lion’s share of those minutes will be the intriguing question in this group.

The Celtics will stick with Theis in the starting five despite him being four inches shorter and at least 50 pounds lighter than the big man. His 3-point shooting will allow the Celtics offense to run with maximum spacing with him on the court, but foul trouble and post defense could lead to a quick hook by Brad Stevens in this matchup. The question Stevens will need to ask when Theis is in the game is how much help he offers him from Boston’s other defenders. There will be no set gameplan on every possession, but a choice must be made between staying home on shooters or trying to take Embiid out of rhythm with double teams. Stevens spoke about the multitude of factors that will go into that choice.

“The past, the now, personnel, how other teams have guarded him, how we’ve tried to guard him, who is around him, who’s not around him, he’s outstanding,” Stevens said. “So I think you give him one look, you’re probably in trouble.”

Kanter was brought here for this matchup primarily after the trade of Aron Baynes last summer, but Boston’s defensive ceiling is limited when he’s on the court. He can body Embiid in the post and help keep him off the glass, but his other liabilities will make this a potential net negative proposition for the C’s unless he has it going with a soft touch around the basket.

The entire wildcard in this equation is Rob Williams of course after his stellar play in Orlando so far. He missed three of the four matchups with the Sixers this year due to his hip injury and his bad habits (biting on pump fakes, getting out of position by chasing blocks) are recipe for disaster against Embiid if he can’t stay disciplined. With that said, he has made great strides in those departments over the past two weeks and will get a chance to make an impact down low against Embiid or Horford.

The Celtics certainly won’t win this positional battle, but if they can avoid it being a blowout by providing some secondary scoring on Embiid on the offensive end of the floor, it bodes well for Boston’s chances.

2. Which Celtics starter gets the offensive mismatch?

Even if Brett Brown elects to shake things up and insert defensive-minded Matisse Thybulle into the starting five for the Sixers, matching up will be a problem for Philly against Boston. If Josh Richardson gets his traditional matchup against Kemba Walker, that leaves one of Hayward/Brown/Tatum with a significant advantage against a slow-footed Al Horford or an undersized Shake Milton. For the Celtics to make quick work of the Sixers in this series, whoever has this mismatch should quickly turn into a featured option among the regulars. That doesn’t necessarily mean the mismatch will take the most shots among the regulars, but he should be involved in most offensive actions in order to open up holes within the Sixers defense. The Celtics are giving up plenty of size on the defensive end, so they must be able to make up for it with their speed edge on the offensive end.

“As far as the Sixers, they definitely have length; very athletic guys. They play really good defense. I think we can use our speed, I think that’s one of our advantages,” Walker said. “We’re going to try to use that to the best of our abilities. And just our overall competitive nature. It’s going to be a battle, it’s going to be a hard-fought battle. Philly is a really good team with some great players. We’re just looking forward to the challenge.”

The Celtics identifying their mismatch early and abusing it against both the Sixers starting lineup as well as their bench (which lacks defensive stoppers beyond Thybulle) will ensure that the NBA’s second-ranked offense in Orlando stays on track.

3. Which Al Horford will show up?

It would be a huge understatement to call the Horford fit in Philadelphia ill-advised this season. His fit with Embiid in the frontcourt has not worked as planned, leaving the Sixers with not enough spacing on the offensive end. That painful development for Brown caused him to pull the veteran from the starting lineup back in February, but he’s back in (for now) following the injury to Simmons.

With Simmons out of the picture, the question is how much will the added space on offense (by eliminating a non-shooter) open up the floor for Horford? His skills are declining at age 34, but he saved some of his best play in the postseason for the Celtics over the past few years and that could continue in this series.

“Al’s an excellent player,” Stevens said. “Al knows how to play, an excellent player at both ends. He understands what they’re trying to accomplish as a team. Obviously had great regular season and playoff moments for us. We obviously have the utmost respect for him and understand all the things he brings to the table.”

The Celtics have the personnel to make him pay if he’s matched up with the likes of Tatum or Brown defensively, but on the flip side, Horford has the skills to bully those guys down low. If his 3-point and midrange game is in rhythm, the Sixers offense gets a lot more dangerous. Normally, he would be considered the 7th or 8th best player in this series based on how his regular season went, but the extra rest during the hiatus could give him an extra gear. If he’s better than any of the C’s top four players, we could have a series on our hands.

4. Can Kemba Walker excel amid the playoff grind?

After playing his way through Boston’s seeding games on a minutes restriction to help protect a sore knee, Stevens indicated that those limitations would be lifted for Walker against the Sixers.

“He’s fine, he’s ready to roll,” Stevens said. “It’s been a good plan of attack by our training staff. And Kemba obviously played well and minutes wise, should be in good shape.”

The cautious ramp-up plan was perhaps a sign of things to come for Walker as a 30-year-old small guard with lots of miles on his tires from the past decade.

“I just think as you get older and you get into this more, he’s just played a lot over the past 10 years,” Stevens said. “So it was important to take a step back. In some ways, the hiatus was probably beneficial for him and then the opportunity to really strengthen the first three weeks here before really ramping up his minutes I thought was the right move.”

While Walker looked good on the court for most of his six games played, the bigger test comes now: Playing big minutes every other day. The Celtics don’t need Walker to be the No. 1 option against the undermanned Sixers, but they do need him to be a constant threat in the pick-and-roll. If he can punish the Sixers bigs for backing off and make pull-up 3s, that will throw Philly’s defensive gameplan into disarray. However, if he struggles with his shot, Philadelphia might be able to hide an inferior defender on him (Shake Milton) and dare Walker to try to finish against Philly’s length in the paint. The ball will likely be in Walker’s hands the most out of any Celtic in this series, and he will need to put himself and his teammates in the right spots in order for the Celtics offense to succeed.

“Everyone brings something different and unique to our team,” Walker said. “Night in and night out you just never know who that guy is going to be, because we have a lot, especially on the perimeter. So, yeah, just like I’ve been doing, just really reading the game, see who’s really got it going. If it’s not myself, obviously whoever it is I’m going to continue to feed that guy and have him make plays, and just really feed off each other like we’ve been doing.”

5. Is the Sixers gritty defense a thing of the past? There is little doubt that Philly will miss Simmons far more on the defensive end than offensively. However, the versatile forward was Philly’s best option at slowing down the likes of Tatum and Brown in head-to-head matchups. Brett Brown will struggle to find adequate defenders for Boston’s firepower already in this matchup, but the bigger issue for him is the fact that Philly’s defense may not have made the trip to Orlando at all. They ranked 19th out of 22 teams during the restart in defensive efficiency, allowing 117.9 points per 100 possessions. That’s nearly a 10 point jump from their regular season mark.

The Sixers did rest starters for a couple of their seeding games, but it’s hard to find one game that mattered in Orlando where this group looked sharp defensively. The Sixers' effort level could hit another gear in the playoffs, which could help eliminate these concerns, but the fact remains they look vulnerable in several areas of the floor. Whether it’s Milton’s size or Horford’s foot speed chasing around perimeter players, the Sixers may not be the defensive juggernaut that Elton Brand thought he was creating. If that’s the case, we could be looking at more of a shootout this series than the defensive struggle that has been a staple of Celtics-Sixers matchups the past couple of years.

Prediction: Celtics in 6. Philly hits enough 3s to make things interesting in a couple of games, but the Celtics are the better team right now on both ends of the floor. The only way the Sixers win this series is if Embiid gets rolling at the same time all of Philly’s 3-point shooters do, but I don’t envision that happening in more than two games.