For once, a game lived up to the hype.
Celtics-Sixers isn’t supposed to be pretty. It isn’t supposed to be a pillar to post domination. It’s supposed to be ugly and messy. It’s supposed to be, as a great Celtic once said, a bar fight.
I have to admit, I’m an old school guy when it comes to this stuff. I grew up before the flagrant foul era; a time when hard fouls were reserved for a guy getting a little too cute and comfortable on the court. I know those days are gone, filed away in drunken memories and grainy VHS tapes. I know that's where they belong. They're pickup trucks with carburetors, stick shifts, and fully leaded gas … fun while they lasted, but obvious relics.
This 2023 version of Celtics-Sixers, flops and foul-hunting head-snaps included, has a push-button start, is fully computerized, and it has that weird, clutchless shifting option. But once you get past the modernization of it all, you can see and feel the similarities.
“It’s fun playing here. Crowd was a little bit hostile in moments,” Jaylen Brown said after the game. “People on the side was talking crazy … before the game we was entering the arena and there was people saying ‘I hope you tear your ACL.’ I understand people care and they love the team they cheer for, but I think it gets a little excessive at times.”
Yes, that's true. Wishing catastrophic injury on someone is excessive and wrong. But at the same time, we’re talking about Philly fans. I’m kind of proud of them for fashioning this kind of hate into coherent sentences without accentuating their point with the throwing of loose change or AA batteries. That's progress.
There's a certain charm to the sports hate, so long as it doesn’t cross certain lines. The Wells Fargo Center for Sixers-Celtics is one of my favorite places on earth because of the venom that flows down from within. There is genuine anger there, which honestly made the “Brotherly Love” uniforms the most ironic jerseys in NBA history. When that exists, it triggers something visceral.
Equal and opposite reactions don’t just apply to Newton’s Third Law.
And so when the Sixers opened the game on a 10-3 run, the bait for the night was set. Sixers fans, antsy from a string of losses to the Celtics that ranged from gut-punch to downright embarrassing, were desperate for some kind of sign that their team was more than leprechaun feed. When Al Horford missed his first three 3-pointers, a popular Sixers blog implored him on Twitter to keep shooting. Boos filled the arena with each misfire.
“I like it,” Horford admitted after the game. “I take it as respect. I wasn't having, I guess, my best game offensively. I feel like that kind of got me going.”
That it was Horford that changed the game is the best part of this story. Horford spent years tormenting Joel Embiid as the one guy who could limit him in ways no one else could. The Sixers overpaid Horford to lure him away from Boston, partially to give Embiid a teammate who could take the pressure off him, and partially to remove an opponent who put the pressure on him. That Horford is still making the money the Sixers promised him to do the same thing against them four years later is a delicious element of this rivalry.
But give Philly their due. They took a Clubber Lang shot to the chin and still kept throwing haymakers of their own. Embiid can flail and flop with the best of them, but the man is also truly an MVP candidate. He looked like he was ready to give in to fatigue like he had in the past, but instead he drove to the hoop and drew foul after foul. Sure, some of the earlier stuff in the game was annoying, but his fourth quarter was dominant. He did all he could to win this game, and he damn near did.
Leprechauns travel well, though, and through the haze of hate came a rainbow and pot of gold. Everyone on Boston’s roster had a hand in building up this moment. Jaylen Brown was brilliant throughout most of the game, flexing a mix of power and finesse to carry the team. Derrick White continued his amazing stretch of precision and near perfection. Through 47 minutes and 54.1 seconds, the slugfest put these teams exactly where they were to start the game.
The floor the Sixers put down for this game had a particular shading, lightly highlighting the old lane Wilt Chamberlain used to dominate for the Philadelphia Warriors. It’s not exactly the old lane, just like 5.9 seconds isn’t exactly 6, the number everyone is wearing in honor of Bill Russell. But it was close enough, and that's what we’re going to have to live with.
Wilt and Bill started this whole damn thing. They made this rivalry what it is, which is to say Boston beat Philly a lot and they hated Boston for it.
This wasn’t exactly them. It wasn’t exactly the Celtics-Sixers a lot of us grew up on. It wasn’t exactly stepping on the clutch, throwing it into gear, and leaving a trail of rubber behind.
But when Jayson Tatum shook off his mess of a night to coolly ruin everyone’s Saturday in Philadelphia, it was still just as satisfying as any Boston win over Philadelphia.
Times have changed, but the thrill of demoralizing the Sixers is still the same.
