As time wound down in the play-in round and it was clear Philadelphia was about to advance to the playoffs, the 76ers faithful chanted “We Want Boston.” Celtics fans were ready. As Boston celebrated its Game 4 win in this series, its fans mocked Philadelphia fans chanting “We Want Boston.”
Be careful messing with the basketball gods, they are fickle.
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There will be a Game 7 in Boston on Sunday — and the 76ers fans returned the favor, again changing “We Want Boston” at the end of their Game 6 win Thursday.
For the second game in a row, the 76ers played strong perimeter defense (holding Boston to 12-of-41, 29.3%, from 3-point range), plus got 30 points from an aggressive Tyrese Maxey, and had another strong outing from Joel Embiid in just his third game back from an appendectomy.
Philadelphia picked up a comfortable Game 6 win, 106-93, forcing a Game 7 on Saturday back in Boston.
It was this kind of night in Philly.
For a couple of games now, the 76ers have done a good job of playing classic playoff basketball — they hunted mismatches for their stars in Maxey, Embiid and Paul George. The result was George scoring 23 on Thursday night, including going 5-of-9 from 3-point range, while Embiid finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.
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On the flip side, Boston is playing slower than they want (or need to), missing their 3s, and their stars — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — have not been able to take advantage of mismatches, or when Embiid is in drop coverage. The ball has stuck for them for the last couple of games. Brown finished the night with 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting, while Tatum had a more efficient 17 points on 13 shots, with 11 rebounds. Payton Pritchard had 14 off the bench for Boston.
Boston led after one quarter, 23-20, behind nine points and nine boards from Tatum. Then, in the second quarter, Maxey woke up. Philadelphia led by nine at the half, 58-49, thanks to Maxey, who scored 13 in the second quarter and 21 in the half. He was doing it from everywhere, shooting 4-of-7 in the paint and 3-of-3 from beyond the arc in the first half. Also in the second quarter, VJ Edgecombe did this.
However, the real difference in the first half was the 76ers’ active perimeter defense, which chased the Celtics off the line — Boston went 6-of-15 from 3, but were 12-of-23 inside the arc and had nine turnovers.
In the face of that pressure, Jaylen Brown dominated the ball and it ground things down. He had five turnovers, wasn’t consistently finding teammates, and on the other end he got back-cut multiple times.
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In the third quarter, it was more of the same, and the 76ers started to pull away, leading by as many as 21.
Down 23 with 10 minutes left in the game, a frustrated Joe Mazzulla rolled out a Ron Harper Jr., Scheierman, Luka Garza, Jordan Walsh, and Pritchard lineup — and it worked. At first. They went on a 9-0 run and cut the lead down to 14 because the bench unit played fast and moved the ball, something the starters were not doing.
However, Maxey and the starters restored order and that was the ballgame.
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