The Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers are set to battle in a win-or-go-home Game 7 at TD Garden on Sunday afternoon. Both teams have had players in this scenario in the past, but Sixers forward Tobias Harris, according to Sixers Wire’s Ky Carlin, has a pretty flippant mentality heading into the decisive matchup.
“Lessons from the past is to win,” laughed Harris. “But obviously, any Game 7 is important. Just for the whole group, but our focus level and as we saw on the film today just being able to limit the little mistakes that we make.”
The film Harris talked about was the 45-second game film of shots that Sixers’ shooters missed that coach Doc Rivers used to emphasize what Philly needs to be better at in Game 7 against the Celtics. The Sixers were 6-for-26 from the field when the shooters were left undefended in the Game 6 Boston win.
“A lot of them are the mental mistakes, the fatigue mistakes, whatever you wanna call it, but limiting those, especially on the defensive end and just staying sharp,” Harris continued. “That’s the key to the game. Staying sharp and you’re never gonna play a perfect game, but just figuring out ways to be really close to that with our preparation and our game plan.”
The Celtics are expecting a heavy-weight bout on Sunday and the Sixers will need to make adjustments if they plan on ousting the defending Eastern Conference champs, especially if Boston goes with the same double-big lineup of Al Horford and Robert Williams III.
The winner will move on to the Eastern Conference finals and a date with the Miami Heat who eliminated the New York Knicks on Friday night. For the Celtics, it would be the second straight trip to the conference finals and would mark the first time Philadelphia has advanced past the semifinals since the 2000-01 season.
