Everything you need to know about the Celtics 110-106 win over the 76ers with BSJ insight and analysis
Box Score
HEADLINES
Celtics put the Sixers away in the second half: The Sixers showed some fight in their final game of the season in the first half, but much like every matchup in this series, weren’t able to sustain it for 48 minutes. Kemba Walker had a game-high 32 points for the Celtics while Jayson Tatum added 28 points and a career-high 15 rebounds to go along with a team-high 4 assists. Joel Embiid finished with 25 points and 10 rebounds for the Sixers but much of his damage came in the first half, as he struggled with his shot (0-of-4 from 3-point range) and effort on the defensive end, allowing Boston to outscore the Sixers by double digits (30-19) in the third quarter and that was enough of a cushion for the victory. The win gives Boston a 4-0 series sweep, the second straight first-round sweep for Brad Stevens in Boston. It is also Kemba Walker’s first playoff series win in his career and the seventh series sweep in franchise history for Boston.
Celtics stars rise to the occasion: Strictly, from a performance standpoint, the Celtics probably had the three best players in this series and they allowed showed up in Game 4. Tatum, Walker and Jaylen Brown combined for 76 points on 50 percent shooting from the field in this one, soundly outplaying the likes of Embiid, Josh Richardson and Tobias Harris all series long. With Boston’s bench looking shorthanded until Hayward returns the onus is going to fall more on those guys and they showed they were up the challenge in this series.
TURNING POINT
Tatum helped the Celtics seize command after Tobias Harris went down with a scary head injury at the end of the third quarter. Tatum keyed a 12-0 run to close the frame after Harris went down, with Tatum scoring seven of those points.
TWO UP
Kemba Walker: The All-Star carried the Celtics offense for the second straight game early on, scoring a team-high 20 points in the first half on just seven field goal attempts. The effort gives him three straight postseason games with 20+ points for the first time in his career. He also scored 30+ points for the first time in the postseason as a Celtic.
Jayson Tatum: The third-year forward bounced back from a tough offensive Game 3 to lead the Celtics for much of the game on both ends. He set a new postseason career-high with 15 rebounds on top of 28 points while also dishing out a team-high four assists.
TWO DOWN
Fouling in first quarter: The Sixers were on a historic pace for free throws (19 attempts) in the first quarter, as the Celtics defense scrambled with their rotations and solid positioning. Philadelphia ended up taking more free throws (19) than the Celtics took shot attempts from the field (18) in the opening quarter, helping them overcome a hot shooting start by the C’s to stay in the game.
Forcing turnovers early: The Celtics have been punishing the Sixers into a lot of mistakes in this series but that defensive pressure was not prevalent on Sunday. The Sixers turned the ball over just one time in the first half, the best mark by a Celtics opponent this season over 24 minutes. Boston did better in the second half (seven turnovers forced) but they are going to have to increase the defensive intensity to stand a chance against Toronto.
TOP PLAY
.@jaytatum0 wasn't slowing down for anyone pic.twitter.com/Vrb5cxG5mC
— Boston Celtics (@celtics) August 23, 2020
TWO TAKES B-ROBB WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER
Jayson Tatum has officially moved past Joel Embiid in postseason player rankings: You could have argued the same case two years ago in the Eastern Conference Semifinals but Tatum has left no doubt in this matchup. No longer will you be able to say the Sixers have the best player in a series between the two teams over the next decade based on the performance we saw out of the All-Star in this one. Joel Embiid had the tougher task with the inferior coach and supporting cast in this series but he also ran out of gas in the third quarter of each game. He remains a liability against any perimeter-oriented team and that’s who the Sixers are going to face among top East teams for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Tatum has looked like a top-10 two way player in the bubble in the first round, carrying the Celtics offense in the first two games and chipped in crucial stops with his defense in Game 3. In the series closer, he did both against a Sixers team that threw the kitchen sink at him but had no answers without Ben Simmons in the lineup. It will be more of a fair fight next round against the Raptors but Tatum did his job against mismatches in this series. Embiid couldn’t do the same against Boston’s frontline.
Brad Stevens is going to have to search every game against Raptors to find right combos off the bench: The head coach has to love what he’s seeing out of his top three starters but he hasn’t gotten a ton of consistency out of his bench in the last two games of his series. That hasn’t mattered much against an undermanned Sixers team but the Raptors will be a far tougher challenge with a balanced eight-man rotation that has a huge experience edge over most of Boston’s reserves. With Enes Kanter’s contributions likely to be limited thanks to his struggles guarding the perimeter, it’s going to be tons of mixing and matching every night from Stevens in order to find the guys that are meshing on any given night.
