– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
BOSTON — In the span of 48 hours, a shot in the dark became a shot in the arm for the Philadelphia 76ers..
In his second game back in the lineup after undergoing an appendectomy, Joel Embiid scored 33 points to keep the 76ers’ season alive as Philadelphia overcame a 13-point second-half deficit and defeated the Boston Celtics 113-97 inside TD Garden in Game 5 on Tuesday evening.
Tyrese Maxey added 25 points and 10 rebounds while Quentin Grimes scored 18 points off the bench, with 12 of those coming in the second half.
Game 6, considered almost an afterthought after the Celtics’ demolition of the 76ers last Sunday, will be played back in Philadelphia on Thursday night. If the 2023 NBA Most Valuable Player has another performance on Thursday like he did tonight — a quantum leap from knocking off the ring rust during Game 4 — then a phrase most never thought would be uttered at the start of the series would be on the lips of all involved: Game Seven.
“I was thinking, [Embiid’s] not far away here from finding some of these [shots] and everybody just kept kind of encouraging him to keep taking them. And then he got inside some, you know, a lot of touches inside,” 76ers head coach Nick Nurse said. “I think that always helps too, to kind of just get you going in general. But obviously, he was very, very good. I mean give him a lot of credit. He worked really hard to get back through this procedure that he had.”
Embiid scored 18 of his 33 points in the second half where the Sixers, who went down 13 less than two minutes into the third quarter, outscored Boston 63-40. The only flaw in Embiid’s game tonight was that he missed all five of his three-pointers, yet it also served as an impetus to dominate inside, which he did with a series if mid-range jumpers — some set up by a series a pivots or dribbles that once flourished over and over during his peak years in the Sixers’ “Trust the Process” era.
That era is still alive and kicking, despite the calls for Embiid to not come back to the series or, if he did, the thoughts that he would not have an impact so soon while catching up to game speed.
“Obviously you don’t want it to end, so you do whatever it takes,” Embiid said. “I thought defensively we did a much better job, especially not over-helping as we did last game, and yeah, then offensively it becomes a little easier when you make the shots. We definitely made more shots than we did last game. So, that’s a good combination when you want to win a basketball game.”
Boston’s double-digit second-half lead dissipated in the third quarter before everything around them collapsed in the final stanza, scoring just 11 points and missing 19 of their 22 shots from the field — both of those season lows in any quarter this season. The Celtics even missed four of their seven free throws in the fourth.
Just owning our space was just not good enough overall from the Celtics tonight,” said the Celtics Jaylen Brown, who scored 22 points but went just 9-for-23 from the field. “So, you know, the result was the result, but got to move on and play in another couple days and get a chance to respond. So look at it, learn from it, and move forward.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Tuesday evening’s Game 5, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 46 pictures in total.
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
