The Philadelphia 76ers are trying to chase a championship in a star-studded Eastern Conference. There are teams in the East that have been together for a few seasons and they have a chemistry the Sixers just don’t have at the moment. They have to build it.
One of those teams is the Boston Celtics, who swept Philadelphia in Round 1 of the playoffs in the bubble in August. The teams matched up on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center for the first time since the playoffs, and the Sixers received a big game from Joel Embiid in a 117-109 win. Boston was first in the conference entering the game.
“Losing to them in the playoffs, and them being also first in the East, you want to play against that competition,” said Embiid after the game. “You want to beat them, and you want to see what you got, and you want to prepare for the playoffs. I thought we did a good job.”
The Celtics were missing Jayson Tatum, but they had Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Daniel Theis and others who contribute to their success. Also, Brad Stevens is still there coaching, and he is one of the top coaches in the league.
“Boston’s a top-tier team and they’re extremely well-coached,” said coach Doc Rivers. “They play together; they’re a bunch of bulldogs, and that’s what they were trying to do out there, and our guys didn’t back up. I don’t know in the past, but, tonight, there were two bulldogs going at each other. That’s what we have to be as well.”
This can’t really be considered a barometer win per se due to Philadelphia missing Seth Curry as well as Boston missing Tatum, but it was still a good win nonetheless. The Celtics always give the Sixers problems no matter who is out there playing and that was the case on Wednesday.
“They didn’t have Jayson Tatum,” said Tobias Harris. “We don’t have Seth out there, but at the end of the day, we looked at it as a game we needed to win. We lost to Memphis and we didn’t get to play at OKC, so that game kinda lingered for the last two and a half days where it was like ‘man we got to get back on the court and fight somebody and beat them.'”
This was a good win for a Sixers team that believes it has a lot to prove on the basketball court. The team is led by a talented duo, but the Sixers have continuously come up short in the playoffs, so they have a lot to keep proving out on the floor.
“We want to progress and that’s the way we’re looking at it, but all in all, we have something to prove verse everybody we play,” Harris added. “Good teams, teams at the bottom of the division, teams at the top, and we have something to prove. We want to prove that to ourselves and to what we have gone against so that’s our mentality.”
The Sixers will face the Celtics again on Friday at the Wells Fargo Center.
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