BSJ Game Report: Celtics 125, Sixers 119 - C's play down to shorthanded Philly, but rally late

Everything you need to know about the Celtics win over the Sixers, with BSJ insight and analysis

IN A NUTSHELL

The first quarter was sloppy (seven turnovers for Boston, 12 combined) and Philly scored 16 of their 36 points in the paint while hitting half their 3-pointers, but Boston shot 70% overall to put up 44 points. The Celtics gave up another 36 points in the second as the turnovers continued to pile up, sending them into half down 72-69. The Celtics finally got some stops but they went cold and continued coughing it up. Then Jayson Tatum picked up his second tech and was thrown out of the game at the end of the third. The defense stepped up some in the fourth, anchored by Al Horford, and they got enough stops, combined with Payton Pritchard's 10 fourth quarter points, to pull away late. 

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Finding a way: This was not pretty at all. There is a lot not to like. However, it’s a win, a league-leading 15th, to stay undefeated at home. Once again, they find a way to come out on top while not looking their best. 

- Rough start: There's a reason why I made the sub-heading on my live coverage post “Trap Game?” 

“The guys that usually don’t get a chance to go out there and play out of their role, they get a chance to do it,” Jrue Holiday said. “So, obviously their two best players are on the court, there’s kind of a role you have to play, but when they’re not playing people step up. I mean they’re NBA players. They know what they can do and are capable, so every night we have to respect them as such.”

They're not going to play perfectly every game, but also, we all saw some variation of this coming. 

- Fourth-quarter heroics: Horford and Pritchard stepped up in a big way to help the Celtics avoid disaster in the fourth. 

“Once you get a team going like that it’s kind of hard to cool them off.,” Horford said. “They were confident, they were playing and it was one of these games that we had to find a way to win. And I’m glad we won because it would have been just awful if we would have lost this game.” 

Horford was a +8 in the fourth and Pritchard was +12. 

TURNING POINT

Horford and Jaylen Brown combined for two straight blocked shots on Tobias Harris with Boston down 106-104. Boston had just turned it over -- again -- and looked like Harris was going to get a clean dunk when Horford flew in for the block. Harris got his own rebound and went up for a two hand dunk when Horford and Brown combined to get the second block. Holiday hit a 3-pointer after that for a huge five-point swing. The Celtics opened up a five-point lead, and while they did trail briefly again by one, this sequence saved them from falling into a hole they might not have been able to escape. 

THINGS I LIKED

- Winning: Add it to the pile of games where we can legitimately say the Celtics probably would have lost last season. Taking a team lightly, never putting them away, and losing Tatum for the entire fourth quarter all seems to add up to a loss. They held on though, and that's meaningful. They're still perfect at home, which is also meaningful. 

- Payton Pritchard: 10 fourth-quarter points to provide the scoring punch the Celtics desperately needed with Tatum gone. 

“That's why he's so competitive. That's why he does what he does. And that's why no matter what happens, you can always rely on him,” Joe Mazzulla said. “What he did tonight is exactly what I expect from him every time his name is called. Made the right play, competed on the defensive end, pick-up points were great, ball pressure was good, get in there for rebounding, and just scored at different levels, whether it was in the paint, whether it was threes, whether it was a cut, that's him.”

Horford’s defense: How many times can I gush about Horford doing all the dirty work to win a game? 

Well, let’s see … 82 games, minus 14 back-to-backs, minus a few other misses here and there … we’ll round it to 20 to be conservative. 

So the answer is 62 times. I’ll probably gush about Horford doing the dirty work to win games 62 times this season. 

Derrick White: Basically the same with White. The man just knows how to play basketball. He was +20 in a back-and-forth game they won by six. That's not easy to do, but it’s indicative of how good he really is. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- The mindset: After all the talk about what they might have learned against Chicago, the Celtics fell into a classic trap of playing lazy against a team missing their best players. This stuff happens all the time in the NBA (the Bucks just lost to the Bulls in overtime with Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan sitting), but it’s still rough to see. 

- Jayson Tatum: Complete loss of composure to get ejected from this game. I guarantee you he was more frustrated at himself than the play. The refs told him to stop multiple times, and if I’m being honest, Bill Kennedy gave Tatum a chance by calling the Celtics coaches over to get him out of there. 

Tatum says he’s shocked by the ejection. And he did make a good point about how much is tolerated at other times, but the fact is in this game, the continued talking put him at risk of getting ejected, and he was. 

- The turnovers: They were so lazy. They had 20 overall, seven from Tatum, who could have had a brilliant offensive game had he not greased his hands before tip off. One might argue that the ejection actually helped the Celtics by forcing them to focus without their best player, and by getting a guy who had been having a rough turnover game off the floor.

- Jaylen Brown shooting a technical free throw: This, to me, is one of the indicators that Brown doesn’t fully get it. As much as he’s been playing better, the mentality behind him choosing to take the tech ahead of White or Sam Hauser is bad. Of course he missed it. He deserved to miss it. 

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Human Nature > Lessons About The Regular Season: For those of us who came out of the Bulls game thinking that maybe the Celtics have learned a lesson about focus and execution, there was a level of hopefulness heading into this one. 

Maybe, just maybe, they would look past the guys who were out, come out strong and focused, and wrap this game up early. 

Nope. 

Human nature is a powerful thing, and the compulsion to relax when you’re the better team facing a shell of an opponent is very strong. Horford admitted as much.

"Yeah, absolutely. I don't feel like we had it,” he said. “Whether it was less competition or just we felt like a step slow out there. It was like all the way around. I feel like the second half, we did a better job. Held them to 25 in the 3rd, 22 in the 4th. So that's how more us. That first half wasn't - I don't think it's indicative of our team."

The fact is, over 82 games, no matter who, what, where, or when, an NBA team is going to play down to opponents. Larry Bird did it. Everyone has.

We want perfection every night, and we should. We don’t walk into a movie hoping it will suck or take a while to get going. We want our entertainment to be entertaining. 

And this game certainly had its entertainment. Any game where Patrick Beverley is going off for a career-high is going to give Boston fans an instant villain. Then Tatum getting tossed added referee-hating to the mix. 

Toss in the Pritchard/Horford combo at the end and the conclusion of this game was thrilling. 

“Games like that, everyone has the expectation of the game is supposed to go a certain way,” Mazzulla said. “That’s not how the NBA works. You saw it the other night when Chicago and Milwaukee. Chicago’s two best players are out, and they win in overtime. So the game wasn't supposed to go a certain way. It went how it went, and it was tough, and I thought we did a great job making plays when it was necessary.”

Next up: The Celtics travel to Indiana for the In-Season Tournament quarterfinal. Winner advances, loser is out.