Rather than ride the momentum of a second straight road win, the Celtics left Philadelphia reflecting on a missed opportunity on Tuesday night.
Hours before tip-off, word broke that 76ers star Joel Embiid would sit out Philadelphia’s rivalry matchup with Boston due to right knee soreness, giving the Celtics an immediate advantage. But instead of capitalizing on the absence of the former league MVP, Boston stumbled in the clutch, highlighted by a pair of costly plays that encapsulated the team’s lingering deficiencies and led to a gut-wrenching 102-100 loss at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
The decisive moment came on the final possession when a play originally designed for Jaylen Brown went awry. Derrick White inbounded the ball to Brown, who, double-teamed by Philadelphia, was forced to return it to White at the top of the perimeter. Guarded by Andre Drummond, White lost control of the ball and forced a 38-foot desperation shot that Neemias Queta nearly tipped in to send the game into overtime.
With 2.9 seconds left and a past-prime Drummond in his face, White was quick to shoulder blame for the devastating ending.
“JB got two guys on him, hit me, and then I lost it — I rushed it there at the end,” White said. “I don’t know why. I had more time than I thought I did there.”
Boston got off to a sluggish start, shooting a miserable 4-for-21 from three (19.0%) and 14-for-50 from the field (28%) by halftime. That left the Celtics with plenty of work to do, but they responded in the second half, outscoring the Sixers 36-20 and significantly improving their field-goal shooting to 65.2%, making 15 of 23 attempts to climb back into the game.
But the comeback bid, valiant as it was, still fell short.
Instead of having the rug pulled out by rookie V.J. Edgecombe again, second-year forward Justin Edwards torched the Celtics from beyond the arc, finishing with a team-high and season-best 22 points. He went 5-of-6 from three, adding three rebounds, three assists, and a steal, playing 27 minutes off the bench. Through his first eight games this season, Edwards had never scored in double figures for Philadelphia — until Tuesday night.
The Celtics held a 92-84 lead in the fourth quarter with six minutes remaining before Edwards went on a 9-0 run himself in a span of 1:18 to get the Sixers back on top with a 93-92 lead.
In hindsight, everything that went wrong can be traced to one simple factor in the eyes of Boston’s locker room: execution.
“It’s no different than the rest of the game — your execution,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Whether it’s transition defense, whether it’s fouling, whether it’s executing on the offensive end — all those things are the same. It comes down to who can make plays. They made the last play, and we didn’t.”
Seconds before Boston’s do-or-die possession, a wide-open three fell to Edwards, and though he missed, Sixers guard Kelly Oubre Jr. swooped in to grab the offensive rebound and put back the game-winning basket.
Brown both abandoned his assignment of guarding Edwards and got boxed out by Oubre on the crucial possession.
“(Tyrese) Maxey was driving, he turned his back — I thought I could go make a play,” Brown recalled. “I was guarding (Edwards). I thought that if I went to go make a play, there wouldn’t be enough time to get a shot off, but I ended up leaving (Edwards) wide open for a three. Then I was kind of like, ‘F—,’ and Oubre slipped behind me for an easy offensive rebound. I got caught ball-watching. You just gotta get in there and get in the fight.”
Boston squandered its grit, third-quarter surge, and Jordan Walsh’s latest stepping-stone performance — all in just 22.6 seconds. Walsh contributed eight points off the bench, grabbed seven rebounds, and added two steals, most impressively holding Maxey to 1-of-4 shooting on possessions where he defended the All-Star guard.
It wasn’t a perfect 48 minutes by any stretch, but the Celtics still gave themselves a fighting chance with the ball in their hands in the make-or-break moment — literally.
“I think we’re gonna be in a lot of close games this year,” White said. “There are definitely things we can learn from and grow from, but we’ve got to start winning some of them.”
