Everything Went Right For The Celtics As They Blitzed The Sixers In Game 1

The Philadelphia 76ers completely overwhelmed the Miami Heat en route to a 4-1 series victory in the first round of the 2018 NBA playoffs. The Sixers seemed like they couldn’t miss from behind the arc, as their arsenal of shooters punished Miami and opened up room for Ben Simmons to go to work throughout the series. That continued to be the case once Joel Embiid made his way back into the rotation.

The Boston Celtics apparently watched all of those games and thought it would be cool as hell to do that to the Sixers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series. Boston — which played this game without Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward, or Kyrie Irving due to injury — could not miss from deep. Philadelphia, meanwhile, struggled to find their form from deep, perhaps because it had been six days since they last played a basketball game.

All of this led to a 117-101 win for Boston in front of a raucous crowd at TD Garden. The Celtics canned 17 of their 36 attempts from behind the arc during the game, good for a 47.2 percent clip. The Sixers, meanwhile, went 5-for-26 (19.2 percent) from downtown. It was a stunning development, especially from Philly, which came into the game connecting on 36.3 percent of their attempts from deep on the postseason.

Boston basically decided on defense that it wasn’t going to let Philadelphia get going from downtown. Joel Embiid more than got his — 31 points, 13 rebounds, five assists — while J.J. Redick went for 20 points. Those two combined for four of the Sixers’ five made threes. Marco Belinelli made the remaining one.

What might have been even more surprising was how the Celtics just prevented the Sixers from shooting threes all together. Philadelphia came into the game attempting 31.4 threes per game. The only guys to attempt more than four on the evening were Redick (who attempted seven) and Embiid (who attempted five). Dario Saric, Robert Covington, Ersan Ilyasova, and Belinelli attempted four, four, three, and two triples, respectively. Simmons had another solid game — 18 points, seven rebounds, six assists, two steals — but also turned the ball over seven times.

Basically, on defense, Boston made it a point to put the clamps on the sharpshooters that Philadelphia possesses, which paid off. On the other side of the floor, well, the Celtics had Terry Rozier and Jayson Tatum, who both put on a show.

Rozier led the team with 29 points and pitched in eight rebounds and six assists. Tatum was right behind him with 28 points, while Al Horford did a bunch of Al Horford stuff en route to going for 26 points, seven rebounds, and four assists. Early on, Rozier and Tatum established that they were going to make an impact in the game in the absence of a number of players.
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As the game went on, it was obvious that Rozier was in the midst of something special. The electric guard went 7-for-9 from downtown, with his final one going down in the game’s waning minutes.

Here are some Horford highlights, which include him making plays based on being a smart and fundamentally sound basketball player, because this is what Al Horford has done going back to his days at Florida.

The play that might sum up the game came late in the third quarter, when Marcus Smart fought Embiid for a rebound, won the battle, threw up a circus shot, made it, and got fouled. Smart started for Brown on Monday night and had nine points and nine assists.

It feels like things should level out a bit in Game 2, as the Sixers should theoretically shoot better while the Celtics should theoretically cool off. It’s totally plausible that Philadelphia was rusty after a long layoff and Boston, having last played on Saturday, was amped up playing in front of its home crowd.

Or maybe this is the sign of things to come. Who knows? But for at least Monday night, the Celtics legitimately looked like a team that can compete for a conference crown, no matter who is out with an injury.