BOSTON–The Philadelphia 76ers were not given much of a chance to go into the TD Garden and Monday night and pick up a win over the Boston Celtics. It made sense considering they dropped three out of four to the Celtics during the regular season and they were missing Joel Embiid.
There was one factor that a lot of people forgot about for this matchup and that was a certain future Hall of Famer.
James Harden reminded everybody of just how ruthless of a scorer he can still be when he dropped 45 points on 17-for-30 shooting to lead Philadelphia to a 119-115 win in Game 1. Harden drilled the go-ahead triple over Al Horford with 8.4 seconds left and the Sixers now have the home-court advantage in this series.
After the win, Harden’s teammates sang his praises.