– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BOSTON — The only thing higher than the cloud that Philadelphia 76ers and their supporters are perched on after Saturday night was the airtime that 5-year-old Arthur Embiid caught after being flung into the air by his NBA MVP dad not too long after the final buzzer sounded that capped one of the must stunning turnarounds in one of the league’s most storied rivalries.
Joel Embiid defied his ailing body, scoring 33 points to go along with 12 rebounds, and the Philadelphia 76ers defied the odds by defeating the Boston Celtics, playing without the injured Jayson Tatum, 109-100 in Game 7 inside TD Garden, winning the final three games of the series and becoming just the 14th team in league history to complete a come back from a 3-1 deficit.
Tyrese Maxey added 30 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists while fellow backcourt mate VJ Edgecombe chipped in with 23 points and five three-pointers as the Sixers scored the first nine points of the game and led by as many as 18 before barely holding off a spirited comeback by the shorthanded Celtics, who just fell short of adding another magical playoff night on the parquet floor to their storied history.
“I’m proud of our guys, and we did a really good job just competing,” Maxey said. “After Game 1, they popped us back in Game 1, hit us in the mouth, and we really came back and fought some adversity. Hit us again in Game 4. So for us to like, flip the script on that, that was big time.”
The 76ers advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals, where they’ll play the New York Knicks inside Madison Square Garden for Game 1 on Monday.
Embiid, who debuted in Game 4 after recovering from an appendectomy less than three weeks prior, is the first player in NBA history to score 100 points in a playoff series despite missing the first three games. His 33 points in the Game 5 victory to keep Philadelphia alive was more of the start of a Sixers avalanche than delaying the inevitable for a Celtics series win, and his 19 first-half points, despite favoring his right side as well as his knee throughout the latter portions of the game, once again set the physical tone the 76ers exhibited over the past six days to complete the comeback.
“Obviously, I’ve played these guys for a while now, so you kind of have what they’re doing; they kind of know what we do. So, obviously, coming back down 3-1 is tough,” Embiid said. “You know, I understand it because we just did it, and then obviously missing three of those games, and really, you know, four, because the first was kind of just me getting back to myself.”
The Celtics played without Tatum after he was ruled out about 90 minutes before tipoff with left knee stiffness, and two days after he left the game early in the fourth quarter with a left calf issue. (Tatum’s Achilles tear last year was in his right leg.) His loss prompted Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla to start Ron Harper Jr., Baylor Scheierman and Luka Garza, opting to have regular starters Neemias Queta and Sam Hauser, as well as sixth man Payton Pritchard, come off the bench to provide firepower from the reserves.
Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 33 points while Derrick White scored 19 of his 26 points in the first half as Boston erased that 9-0 start from the Sixers to take the lead in the second quarter after starting it on an 18-4 run.
“Obviously, didn’t finish the way we would’ve liked. I give credit to Philadelphia. I watched them get better as the playoffs went on,” Brown said. “But just from our guys to come out for Game 7 and play with that level of intensity, play with that level of trust, that’s the style that I just felt like we’ve been doing all year, and I loved it. It was a pleasure. Each and every one of those guys I’ve watched develop, get better, and step up in big moments and help us win games. Tonight, we came up a little bit short in the fourth quarter.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday evening’s Game 7, 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 55 pictures in total.
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