Joel Embiid was back on the court for Philadelphia, returning from an appendectomy less than three weeks ago to give the 76ers a needed bump in a critical first-round game against Boston.
Except there was no bump. Kind of the opposite.
Philadelphia’s other stars, like Tyrese Maxey, had to adjust to the big man in the paint and seemed to defer to him early on. The result was an offense that just did not work and missed a lot of shots.
Meanwhile, Boston just kept doing what they do.
Pritchard scored 32 off the bench and knocked down six 3-pointers, while Jayson Tatum scored 30 with five from beyond the arc, plus he had 11 assists.
Boston led by 16 after one quarter, and its lead never touched single digits again as the Celtics cruised to a 129-96 win on the road.
The Celtics have a commanding 3-1 series lead as the series shifts back to Boston for Game 5 on Tuesday.
The 76ers are unquestionably better when Embiid is on the court, on both ends, but putting a superstar back in the lineup can mean an adjustment period. In this case, the combination of Embiid and the Celtics’ defense meant Tyrese Maxey had just three shot attempts in the first half, as he seemed to defer to the big man, who had 10 (and Paul George had seven).
The 76ers also just could not buy a bucket in the first half. As a team, Philadelphia shot 12-of-36 (33.3%) and 3-of-12 from beyond the arc in the first 24 minutes, and if that wasn’t enough, also gave up nine offensive rebounds to the Celtics.
The result was Boston racing out to a 21-point first-half lead and seemingly hitting every key shot.
Boston was up by 18, 56-38, at halftime, led by Pritchard with 18 off the bench. The Celtics were rolling, and it proved to be too much to ask the 76ers to overcome that, especially for a 76ers defense that struggled to get a stop much of the night (Boston had a ridiculous 139.1 offensive rating through the non-garbage time part of this game, according to Cleaning the Glass).
In addition to Pritchard and Tatum, Jaylen Brown added 20 points and seven rebounds.
Embiid finished with 26 points on 9-of-21 shooting with 10 rebounds. Maxey was more assertive in the second half and finished with 22 points, and Paul George had 16.
Nick Nurse has some work to do to see if he can get these 76ers on the same page — on both ends of the court — by Tuesday, or Philadelphia’s season is going to come to an end much earlier than they hoped.
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