Instant observations: Sixers beat Celtics in Game 7 thriller behind Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid

Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey got the Sixers their first series win over the Boston Celtics since 1982, scoring 64 combined points to lead the Sixers to a 109-100 win and advance to a second-round series against the New York Knicks.

Here’s what I saw.

A big game from the big man in a big moment

A lot of Sixers fans have been traumatized by the number of weird things and random role players who have dismantled the franchise in big games over the years. So when Jayson Tatum was ruled out for Saturday’s pivotal Game 7, the reaction around Philadelphia was less excited than you would have expected. Surely, some random role player was going to hand you the awful loss this time around, and surely, the Sixers were going to have a letdown against a team they were now expected to beat.

The level of poise Philadelphia showed in the first 12 minutes is unlike anything I’ve seen from a Joel Embiid-led team in a big moment. It started, naturally, with the big man himself. With the Celtics opting to start Luka Garza in an attempt to drag Embiid out of the paint with pick-and-pop threes, the big man had a matchup to hunt as soon as the game tipped off. Early on, it was less about the mismatch in the post and more about getting Embiid his looks from the elbows, and he finally rediscovered his touch on jumpers after clanging lots of shots off the rim in his first three games of the series.

But Embiid’s full arsenal was on display in Game 7. The Sixers did an excellent job of finding Embiid on the block against mismatches of all kinds, and better yet, Embiid was methodical once he got the ball on a deep catch, waiting out the Celtics doubles without ever seeming bothered by them. That was one area where I thought Jayson Tatum’s absence hit Boston — his additional size and athleticism pose problems when the Celtics flood the zone, while this group did almost nothing to bother Embiid in the post. Kelly Oubre, VJ Edgecombe, and others got a few free ones on back cuts, and when the Celtics couldn’t pressure Philadelphia’s star center, he was getting fouled or scoring two.

We were right back to the old playoff days in the first half, with Embiid’s first trip to the bench completely unraveling the team. Andre Drummond had a disastrous first-half stint, playing a shade under four minutes while getting repeatedly smoked by Queta, who he kept jumping at and playing up on despite Queta’s complete disinterest in shooting beyond four feet. Tyrese Maxey’s nice start to the game on offense faded away, with rookie Hugo Gonzalez jumping back into the rotation and dislodging their star guard on a few big possessions. Maxey’s poor decisions on defense didn’t help, with No. 0 sitting on three fouls for the bulk of the second quarter, unable to use much physicality on either end of the floor. So back came the big man to try to settle things down, and relegate Drummond to permanent bench duty.

Joe Mazzulla was in pure panic mode trying to deal with Embiid in this game. After the surprise Garza start, he tried multiple small-ball looks early in the third quarter, using the likes of Gonzalez, Jaylen Brown, and Jordan Walsh to try to guard Embiid with help roaming around him. There was a spirited moment between Brown and Embiid in the middle of the third quarter, with Brown jawing with Embiid as he thought he had an opportunity to stop him. Embiid backed him into the rim, scored an easy basket at the rim, and gave the Celtics’ star wing an earful as Boston was forced to pull the ball out of the net.

I thought you could sense exactly how much this opportunity meant to Embiid. He ran the floor hard with the Sixers in transition, scooping up a Quentin Grimes miss for an offensive rebound and putback. Embiid was a big part of keeping the Celtics off the offensive glass, boxing out their bigs and battling for the ball with repeated efforts, even when he wasn’t the man to secure it. And I think his defense in this series has been orders of magnitude better than I would have expected after the appendicitis layoff. Once the Sixers shifted to more aggressive drop coverage, he settled into a real groove as a rim protector, and Game 7 featured some outstanding blocks and rotations from him, including a couple of big ones at the tail end of the first half that helped keep the Sixers out in front.

Basketball has gone through relentless evolution during my lifetime, but the one thing that remains true is that you have the biggest guy on the floor and he plays like it, you’re going to have a great chance to win. Embiid treated every size mismatch with the disrespect it deserved, leveraged his size on defense, and powered this team to its first playoff series win over the Celtics since 1982.

And the guards to close

Of course, Embiid needed quite a bit of help to get this over the line, because by the time they got to crunch time, he had mostly emptied the clip. Philadelphia had turned into a jumpshooting team during the middle portion of the fourth, allowing zone defense and roamer defense from Queta to bait them into poor offensive process.

It was up to Tyrese Maxey to change things up, as he did on a critical possession with five minutes and change to go. The Sixers hunted mismatches on the perimeter to get Sam Hauser on an island, and he hit the gas to get to the paint, drawing free throws that brought the game to a halt and settled the Sixers in. And he was the guy who made all the big plays down the stretch for Philadelphia — a drive with two minutes to go to extend the lead, another to push the lead to five points with 1:16 to play, and the most important rebound of the game to put this game on ice in the final 30 seconds.

It was nothing more than a missile-guided approach from Maxey, shaking them out of a jumper-heavy slumber to completely change the course of the game. Most of the all-time great centers have needed a perimeter star to push them to the highest peaks of the sport. And after a season where he was forced to be the solo star, propping up a banged-up team, Maxey was able to use the wisdom gained along the way to close out Boston’s year. Hell of an effort.

Elsewhere in the backcourt, VJ Edgecombe opened his season with an ass-kicking performance on the road in Boston, and he did his best to close the book on the Celtics in the final meeting between the two teams this season. Early on, his work was nearly all done on the break, with Edgecombe pushing the pace and gliding past half-hearted attempts from Boston to stop him. He had a willing and able partner in Maxey, who did well to find hit-ahead opportunities during Boston’s initial offensive swoon.

Of course, this game was always going to come down to Edgecombe punishing the Celtics for playing off him on the perimeter. It was a roller coaster in the first half, with Edgecombe making two of his six first-half threes, which included a couple of pristine makes and a jumper he may or may not have airballed depending on what you thought about the potential tip from Gonzalez. It was fair to wonder if he had enough in the bag in non-Embiid minutes, whether he could help Maxey drag this team toward the second round.

Other notes

— This was as extreme a Game 7 script as you probably could have expected for the Sixers, with their role players offering close to nothing all night. Kelly Oubre played another offensive clunker with a few braindead moments on both ends, Quentin Grimes played better defense but couldn’t get shots to drop, and Justin Edwards’ first-half cameo was abandoned after only two minutes.

— Every Paul George three in this game felt like a big make. The move he made to dust Sam Hauser and hit a stepback three from the corner in the third was a thing of beauty.