{"id":1902283,"date":"2026-04-25T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1902283"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:00:19","slug":"76ers-waste-opportunity-against-celtics-with-miscues-on-the-margins-in-game-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1902283","title":{"rendered":"76ers waste opportunity against Celtics with miscues on the margins in Game 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PHILADELPHIA \u2014 With each dagger 3-pointer the Boston Celtics hit, the angst in Xfinity Mobile Arena got louder.<\/p>\n

An electric, sellout crowd in Philadelphia had seen a Sixers team fight for almost 48 minutes. The echoes of the past walked through the building, only fitting in a Philly-Boston postseason rivalry. There was Allen Iverson. There was Julius Erving. Philadelphia Eagles first-round pick Makai Lemon rang the pregame Liberty Bell. Theo Ratliff walked laps around the building with his family. The ambiance and energy were incredible.<\/p>\n

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As the Celtics knocked home big shot after big shot, the Sixers stayed resilient and tough. Philadelphia embodied the grit of a city on Friday night. The 76ers hung in, fought back and gave themselves a real chance at winning Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round matchup.<\/p>\n

If only they could grab a rebound. If only they finished off those defensive possessions with\u2026 possession of the basketball. If only they did the little things the Celtics have become so good at. The major aspects of basketball aren\u2019t the reason Philadelphia went down 108-100 to Boston. Playoff games are won and lost on the margins. They are won or lost on the ability to come up with loose balls. In a game that was tightly contested at every turn, the Boston Celtics won because of the things hardly noticeable.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTurnover leads to a basket. Offensive rebounds leads to a 3. Every single time,\u201d Philadelphia point guard Tyrese Maxey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the tough part. We did a hell of a job guarding them. We competed. We made it tough on them. Then, we give up an offensive rebound and a 3-ball. Or, we didn\u2019t box out and we give up a layup. When you play a good team, you have to have a real attention to detail. We needed to be better at that, tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 76ers know what they are dealing with, and they saw it on full display on Friday night. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were both difficult to stop for the Sixers. Unlike Game 2, Boston\u2019s role players were effective. The Celtics made shots in bunches and built a double-digit lead on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia fought back. The 76ers made multiple runs to get the game within a few possessions. Maxey\u2019s pull-up 3-pointer even gave the Sixers an 85-84 lead, midway through the fourth quarter. This is a Boston team that the 76ers have to play almost perfectly against. That\u2019s the task.<\/p>\n

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On Friday night, Philadelphia played a good game. And, against many a playoff team, that would probably suffice. Philly has to be better than good against the Celtics. Boston leads the series 2-1, with Game 4\u2019s matchup on Sunday night. It amounts to a must-win for Philadelphia. The Sixers are still in a good spot. But a 3-1 deficit would probably mean the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty tough rebounding game for us,\u201d Philadelphia head coach Nick Nurse said. \u201cThey had 15 of them for the game. They hit 3s off rebounds. They certainly capitalized a little more. I thought our guys played their butts off. I\u2019m proud of the way they competed. They were certainly giving effort out there. I just thought we made some mistakes that you can\u2019t make in a game like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key for Philadelphia is to make sure the good things it did on Friday carry over to Game 4. It\u2019s easy to say they can. But playoff games, particularly in a hotly competitive series, are often their own entities and have little carryover.<\/p>\n

Maxey was terrific in Game 2, and he was once again terrific in Game 3. When the Sixers\u2019 offense broke down, he was there to create shots. He scored a game-high 31 points and kept Philadelphia afloat when it looked like the Celtics were ready to pull away. Paul George and Adem Bona both had their best games of the series. And, the 76ers defended well and were resilient.<\/p>\n

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The lack of rebounding was disappointing, however. For Philadelphia, it\u2019s not a one-off that can be fixed as the series progresses. It\u2019s who the 76ers have been this season. If you look at the three negative characteristics that have defined Philadelphia as a team this season, two were present Friday night. The 76ers have not been a great home team, and ironically enough, have been a terrific road team. And, they haven\u2019t rebounded well defensively all season.<\/p>\n

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When you look at the statistics, you can make the case that the Sixers could have won the game. They forced Boston to turn the ball over 17 times. They outscored the Celtics 42-26 in the paint. They didn\u2019t allow Boston to find points in transition. But, they didn\u2019t rebound. When they forced Boston to miss, they didn\u2019t finish those defensive possessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose second chances they got, those were the game,\u201d George said. \u201cThey got some big plays and some big rebounds that we needed to come up with. It wasn\u2019t like we weren\u2019t boxing out. We would lay a body on someone, and the ball would take a long bounce, it would fly right over our heads and right to them. Then, they would have another opportunity at a basket, and too often, they converted those.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question for the 76ers is whether or not they get star center Joel Embiid back for Game 4. He has been conditioning for almost a week. He participated in parts of Friday morning\u2019s shootaround, even though he was ruled out about three hours before Game 3.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia needs him. Maxey and George have had to carry almost all of Philadelphia\u2019s offensive responsibility, and the 76ers desperately need Embiid\u2019s ability to create offense and gravity in half-court situations. Philly can also use some help with that defensive rebounding thing. It could serve as an emotional boost for Embiid to get back onto the floor, even in limited minutes. But the 76ers aren\u2019t going to beat Boston, unless they play as close to perfect as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny, the last game, they made a run and we came back and we made every single play and we won the game,\u201d Maxey said. \u201cTonight, we made the run at them, and they made every single play and they won the game. It\u2019s little stuff like that that decides games. Our attention to detail has to be great, because the margins in these games are really small. These are single-possession games and every possession really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 With each dagger 3-pointer the Boston Celtics hit, the angst in Xfinity Mobile Arena got louder. An electric, sellout crowd in Philadelphia had seen a Sixers team fight for almost 48 minutes. The echoes of the past walked through the building, only fitting in a Philly-Boston postseason rivalry. There was Allen Iverson. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1902283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1902283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1902283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1902283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1902283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}