The Celtics claimed they understood the stakes. Hours before their pivotal Game 5, Malcolm Brogdon declared it a must win. The sense of urgency was real.
“It’s a desperation mindset for us,” Brogdon said. “We have to have this one.”
Hours later, those words proved hollow. And suddenly, somehow, this Celtics season filled with so much promise, with expectations of a championship, is on the brink of dying in the second round.
These Celtics – who made their lives difficult time and time again – continued the alarming theme on an embarrassing night in TD Garden. The crowd was lifeless from the opening tip, but the Celtics gave them nothing to be excited about. They flatlined with one of their worst performances at the worst time, a 115-103 loss to the 76ers.
Now, the Celtics have to win two consecutive games to save their season, the first coming with Thursday’s Game 6 in Philadelphia. They put themselves in the same position as last season, when they lost Game 5 at home to the Bucks in the second round before winning that series.
It’s hard to feel optimistic about a repeat of that after Tuesday’s dud at the Garden, where boos followed the Celtics throughout the night.
Jayson Tatum scored 36 points, but needed 27 shots to do so. Jaylen Brown scored 24 points. But the Celtics shot just 12-for-38 from 3-point range, and they let Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, who scored 33 and 30 points respectively, to have their way with them. Not even a brief cameo from Payton Pritchard could save them.
The Celtics trailed by double digits for nearly the entire second half and were 14 with under 10 to go when Tatum completed a three-point play. Dead for most of the night, the crowd came to life but were quickly deflated. Maxey answered with a 3-pointer, and after Brown was fouled on the ensuing play, he missed both free throws. Embiid followed with a triple to restore the SIxers’ lead to 17.
The closest the Celtics got again was 12 – well after Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla pulled the plug on his starters.
After an abysmal offensive first half, it only kept getting worse in the third quarter as the Celtics continued to miss open shots, and their deficit grew to 17 after a 3-pointer from Tyrese Maxey. The C’s were 6-for-27 from deep when Tatum hit a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession and Joe Mazzulla called for Pritchard – who had played 12 minutes this postseason, all in garbage time – in search of a spark. But he never even took a shot until garbage time.
The immediate results weren’t productive. James Harden drew a fourth foul on Brown while shooting a 3-pointer. The Sixers led by 19 when Maxey hit a floater with 29 seconds left in the third, drawing more boos from the Garden crowd. Even after Tatum made a three to cut the deficit to 16 entering the fourth, the booing continued.
Other takeaways from the loss:
– Given the stakes of a pivotal Game 5, the Celtics started the game with a remarkable lack of energy and urgency. The Sixers scored five second-chance points on four offensive rebounds in the early minutes, Tyrese Maxey torched the Celtics, whose defensive intensity was alarmingly lacking as the Sixers shot 13-for-25 in the first quarter. Tatum’s first-quarter struggles continued as he went 0-for-5 in the first and missed his six first shots.
The 76ers, without Embiid in the lineup, started the second quarter on a 7-0 to push their lead to 14 and forced a Celtics timeout. The crowd at TD Garden, abnormally silent to that point, booed the Celtics as they walked to the bench.
– The Celtics finally flipped a switch – at least briefly – in the second quarter. After trailing by 15, they chipped away at their deficit at the free-throw line as they got the Sixers into the penalty with 7:09 left in the period. Smart earned a generous call when P.J. Tucker was whistled for a foul, and the Sixers were given a technical foul arguing it. The C’s kept the SIxers scoreless for more than four minutes as they cut their deficit to five, which ignited some life inside the Garden.
– Despite taking 18 free throws in the second quarter, the Celtics didn’t make up any ground in the period, because they couldn’t hit shots and couldn’t stop fouling either. They trailed by five when Grant WIlliams committed back-to-back fouls on Embiid on jump shots. Brown was whistled for two offensive fouls sandwiched around a Tobias Harris 3-pointer that restored Philly’s lead to 12. They couldn’t sustain any momentum.
– Horford, after a throwback weekend in Philadelphia, had a brutal start to Game 5. He missed his first six 3-pointers, contributing to a disastrous first-half shooting display for the Celtics, who went 5-for-19 from deep, with many of them wide-open looks.