Final: Celtics 88, Sixers 87 - C's gut out sloppy win

Game 22: Boston Celtics (11-10, T-7th East) vs. Philadelphia 76ers (11-10, T-7th East)
TD Garden
7:30 PM - NBC Sports Boston, NBA TV

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUPS 

Boston: Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford, Robert Williams

Philadelphia: Danny Green, Tyrese Maxey, Seth Curry, Tobias Harris, Joel Embiid

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

- This is the sixth time Boston’s opening night lineup is playing together. Philadelphia has their lineup for the seventh time. 

- Robert Williams is back, but Ime Udoka says the team is going to monitor his minutes to see if he needs shorter stints. 

“I was down bad, man. The flu had me,” Williams said before the game. “I’m just happy to be back. Glad to be back. Obviously got a big game tonight, who wouldn’t want to be out there?”

- Philadelphia is 0-4 vs. the Atlantic Division

- Boston is favored by 2.5

GOING A LITTLE DEEPER

[Insert Spiderman pointing meme]

The Celtics and Sixers have both been hit hard by absences, and both are only just now starting to find themselves at full strength. So both teams hope tonight is a chance to prove something about themselves and who they are at full strength.

“More importantly than that is having our guys back instead of worrying about them,” Ime Udoka said. “They’re not worrying about us roster-wise. A lot of people are going through it. COVID situations happen with guys, injuries as well. What we’re doing is just trying to get some continuity back with our guys.”

The continuity the Celtics are hoping to build starts tonight vs. Philadelphia, but the Celtics are hoping it can carry them through a rough upcoming stretch. The C’s have caught a couple of breaks on the trip, with Damian Lillard now out for 10 games with abdominal tendinopathy and LeBron James in Health and Safety Protocols. For once, the Celtics seem to be the team on the favorable side of injuries. 

They’d like to keep it that way. 

“We’d like to shave minutes down of guys who have carried the load, it will be beneficial,” Udoka said before the game. “I feel good just having some of the guys back, and seeing what Romeo (Langford) and some of the other young guys did as well, and feeling confident in any lineup or group we put out there. Any chance to help out with Jayson and anyone else who has carried the load, it will be beneficial for us going forward.”

Another candidate for a lessened workload is Horford. He’s stepped up in Robert Williams’ absence, but the team has to weigh the risk/reward of playing him big minutes. 

“It’s not ideal - we don’t want him to be the guy that takes on the brunt of minutes with Rob out,” Udoka said. “We’ve kind of done it tag-team-wise. Any chance to scale his minutes down, have less time out there, will be good going forward.”

Horford might not want to scale back in this one. He left Boston for Philadelphia a couple of years ago and it didn’t go well. With Horford back to playing well, it fuels chatter that the Sixers never really used him properly. 

Just add that to the pile of tinder fueling the rivalry.

"It's a unique one that you don't really realize until you're in it,” Udoka said of the rivalry. “Jayson, Jaylen, Marcus, Kemba (Walker) in China, they had talked about it, before realizing I was going to Philadelphia. So, made some jokes like we got mind control over Philly, and Philly said the same thing when I was there. It's been something that is obviously pretty deep-seeded and has a lot of series over the last few years. It's a unique one that's not broadcast like the Celtics-Lakers one. But the teams are very competitive and a lot of guys have crossed paths with these two teams in light of it."

THREE THINGS TO WATCH FOR

1. Run!!: The Sixers are bad in transition. They’re giving 15.7 fastbreak points, second-most in the league. They’re not giving up points off turnovers, so basically the plan should be to look upcourt off misses. 

2. Crash the glass: They are giving up the sixth-most second chance points in the NBA. The Celtics are back to full strength, but this could still be another opportunity to use Enes K. Freedom not just to use his strength to guard Embiid, but to punish the Sixers on the boards. 

3. Who guards Embiid?: Will Robert Williams get a crack at Embiid? Will it fall on Horford, who has guarded Embiid well in the past and has one season of institutional knowledge? Will Freedom get some minutes to muscle him?

GAME THREAD

Stick around for more comments below as the game goes on. Feel free to add your two cents in the comments.