BOSTON — The Boston Celtics turned a mere three-point halftime lead into a 26-point advantage entering the fourth quarter after a dominant third period en route to a 112-88 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at TD Garden on Sunday.
The 76ers, with NBA MVP Joel Embiid (15 points on 5-for-18) held scoreless in nine minutes during the period, couldn’t do much of anything. Philadelphia shot 3-for-21 in the quarter all while Celtics star Jayson Tatum torched the Sixers defense with 17 of his game-high 51 points. Boston outscored Philadelphia 33-10 in the third.
Here’s a graphic which paints the picture rather clearly:
“Getting stops, just playing defense,” Jaylen Brown said in regards to how Boston was able to build its lead. “Putting pressure on them by playing great defense. And Jayson Tatum. JT just got it going. Get out of that man’s way, and he just got it rolling. There was nothing they could do to stop it. They started trying to double team him and it gave open looks to other guys. When JT is playing like that, were going to be extremely hard to beat.”
Tatum scored 10 of Boston’s first 12 points of the quarter.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla credited Boston’s attention to detail on offense. The Green didn’t turn it over at all during the third, and the fact they shot 58% from the floor limited the 76ers in transition.
“I felt like our spacing let us down (in the first half). I felt like our shot selection let us down early,” Mazzulla said. “They got some transition opportunities and when they’re allowed to get out in transition, it’s harder to stop them in the half court. So credit to our defense for continuing to just play regardless of our offensive outcome. And then once we fixed our spacing and our intentionality on offense, that’s kind of where we broke through.”
The Celtics got red-hot from long range, too. Consecutive 3-pointers from Brown and Tatum gave the Celtics a 15-point lead midway through the quarter. The rout was on. They made eight triples in the 12-minute span, shooting 66% from beyond the arc in the period.
Here are more notes from Celtics-76ers Game 7:
— A frustrated Mazzulla had an emotional message for the Celtics just 1:51 into the second quarter as he led the huddle after a questionable foul call on Derrick White. The Green proceed to answer Mazzulla’s challenge with a Celtics 16-6 run over the next six-plus minutes.
“Yeah, just building awareness to how the games going,” Mazzulla said of his message. “I think in a game like that the guys are so focused on playing hard because they want to win that you lose sight of the reality sometimes. … So just building an awareness like, ‘Hey, here’s really how the game is going. We got to shift it. We got to shift the momentum. We have to get it back.’ And the guys did that.”
— The 76ers got off to a great start behind, as we all expected, veteran P.J. Tucker. Tucker, with the Celtics daring him to shoot given their defensive coverages, scored a team-high 11 points in the first quarter. He hadn’t scored more than nine points in a game this postseason and the 11 points doubled his average in the series. Essentially, while Philadelphia’s six-point first-quarter lead wasn’t ideal for Boston, Tucker’s contributions never were going to be a lasting game-changer. He finished the contest with the same 11 points.
— While Al Horford was on the front lines against Embiid, Celtics players credited Mazzulla for his game plan in stopping the big man. It marked the second time in six games the Celtics held Embiid to 15 points, doing so in his Game 2 return as well. Philadelphia was 0-2 in those contests.
“I was out there trying to fight for my life,” Horford told reporters, per MassLive’s Brian Robb, after Embiid scored five of his 15 on free throws.
— Two hours before tip off for Game 7, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that an NBA officiating game report revealed a “significant disparity” between calls that favored the Celtics and calls that favored the 76ers in Thursday night’s Game 6. Doc Rivers was not happy to hear about the development, and expressed as much in his pregame availability with his team set to take the floor for a winner-take-all Game 7.
Well, the development probably led many Celtics fans to relate that report with some very questionable officiating in the first half of Game 7 as a handful of questionable calls went against the Green. There was an overturned backcourt violation by Tobias Harris, the White foul on James Harden that prompted Mazzulla out to center court, a double-technical involving Brown and a tripping foul on Marcus Smart, who was landed on by Joel Embiid.
Mazzulla, though, didn’t think it played any role.
“I saw (the report), yeah. Honestly, we both shot seven free throws in the first half, so I really don’t think it was that big of a deal,” Mazzulla said. “I think because of the reports or whatever the case may be, it seems louder. You see the report, you go out in the game, they make three calls and it’s like, ‘Yup, see.’ And that just wasn’t the case.”
— Boston now advances to play the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. The best-of-seven series will begin Wednesday at TD Garden. You can check out the full schedule here.
