Down 17 at the Wells Fargo Center after one of their worst first halves of the season, Joe Mazzulla gave his Celtics starters a choice:
Did they want to stay in the game, raise their effort level and try to rally against a Philadelphia 76ers team that was missing several of its top players? Or did they want to take the rest of the night off and cede the second half to the bench?
Jayson Tatum and Co. chose the former and, after scuffling through most of the third quarter, staged Boston’s largest comeback since April 2021, erasing a 26-point deficit over the final 18 minutes to win 118-110.
“We had to be honest with ourselves at halftime,” Tatum told reporters after the game. “They had 20 points in transition. Our competitive spirit wasn’t where it needed to be, and Joe was like, ‘Yo, if you’re tired, then just tell me. I can sit you guys down and the let the stay ready guys play,’ and we just had a choice to make. It was a long third quarter. It didn’t go our way right away, and we just had to keep fighting. But it brought the best out of us. That’s how we’re supposed to play.”
A 16-4 run featuring two 3-pointers from Derrick White and one each from Sam Hauser and Tatum cut the Sixers’ lead to 14 points entering the fourth quarter. Two-and-a-half minutes later, it was down to single digits. By the midway point of the fourth, the Celtics were ahead, taking their first lead since the first quarter on back-to-back Tatum threes.
Boston never relinquished that lead, holding Philadelphia without a field goal for the final 3:06 while getting clutch makes from Derrick White, Tatum and Jrue Holiday. Holiday’s three with 52 seconds remaining, followed by his blanket defense on Sixers leading scorer Tyrese Maxey on the ensuing possession, sealed the win for the Celtics, whose comeback equaled the largest by any NBA team this season.
After managing just 44 points on 33.3% shooting in the first half (their second-worst and worst marks this season, respectively), the Celtics scored 74 points after halftime, making 14 of their 22 3-point attempts and hitting 10 consecutive field goals during one game-changing stretch.
“It was a little bit of everything,” White told reporters. “Just getting stops, and then offensively, getting good looks and finally knocking some down. I think everybody contributed, especially in the end of the third and the whole fourth. So it was a great team win.”
Mazzulla did not mention his halftime message during his postgame news conference but said he was “proud” of how the Celtics fought back.
“In the first half, we weren’t making shots, and it was impacting some of our defensive details,” the head coach told reporters. “In the second half, we played through it and chipped away at it. We got stops. We got out. We were able to run. … I just liked our guys’ mindset. I was kind of studying their body language, and it looked like they really, really wanted to do what it took to win. So I stuck with them, and they delivered.”
The victory gave Boston its first three-game winning streak since the opening week of January. Though the Celtics have lacked night-to-night consistency since mid-December, they’re 7-3 in their last 10 games and led late in the fourth quarter in two of those losses.
Next up for the Celtics is a measuring-stick game Tuesday night at Cleveland. The Cavaliers lead the Eastern Conference by 5 1/2 games over second-place Boston and have looked dominant of late. After navigating a two-week slump that featured three straight losses and five in eight games, the Cavs have won their last four, all by at least 19 points.
The Celtics and Cavaliers split the first two games of their season series, with each team winning on its home floor. Boston was missing White and Jaylen Brown in their most recent meeting, a 115-111 Cavs victory on Dec. 1.