Boston Celtics Get GOOD & BAD News After NBA Season Opener vs. 76ers

Boston Celtics Get GOOD & BAD News After NBA Season Opener vs. 76ers

[Music] A heartbreaker in the opening game of the 2025 2026 season for your Boston Celtics as they lose to the Philadelphia 76ers 117 to 116. They had two looks to win it at the end of the game. Neither of those looks went to Jaylen Brown, the Celtics number one option for the season without Jason Tatum. Both looks went to Peyton Pritchard. He could not convert on either. may have gotten fouled, but besides that, the shots did not go in and Philly was able to get out of Boston with the win. You could point to a lot of different reasons as to why Boston lost this game. They allowed a 40 plus point fourth quarter from the Philadelphia 76ers. A fourth quarter in which they were up by 13 points. That third quarter for Boston was their best 12-minute stretch of the game. They were fantastic. They went up double digits heading into the final period. Couldn’t get it done though. They ran out of gas. transition was an issue and Nimas Kada in his Celtics starting center debut for real had a great game but ended up fouling out and the Celtics could not collect rebounds and corral rebounds at the end of the game that ended up giving Philly more opportunities and they walked out with the win 117 to 116. Your Celtics lose. We’re going to break it down and all the performances that happened because the Celtics let up some crazy individual performances from Philadelphia. First though, make sure you are subscribed to the channel. We just passed 54,000 subscribers on our Celtics watch party for the opening night game. And we don’t stop there. Win or lose, we are going to continue covering your Boston Celtics every single day on the channel. Free videos, 10 to 15 minutes surrounding whatever’s going on, the latest news and rumors, game recaps, trade rumors, injury news, and so much more. We also go live for all the Celtics games as well. So, subscribe, turn notifications on, and you’ll never miss a moment around your Boston Celtics here. All right, we got to talk about it, man, because we can’t talk about any Celtics individual performance first before we talk about that. Tyrese Maxi just absolutely tore you up. 40 points on 13 of 24 from the field. I mean, seven of nine from three-point range. He had a stretch in the in that fourth quarter where he was just unconscious. Gets the ball in his hands, he’s pulling and he’s hitting from 30 feet 30 feet out. Look, you can’t guard that a lot of the times, but Seas couldn’t stop him in transition either. They couldn’t stop him going to the basket. And I think that’s going to be a little bit of an issue so far with your seeds so far this year. There’s bad news. I would argue more bad news than good news in this game. We are going to get to some good news in just a little bit. Do not worry. But Tyrese Maxi frying you off the dribble today. Absolutely cause for for some concern here as far as the Celtics perimeter on ball defense goes. You know who else fried you off the dribble off the catch everywhere tonight? VJ Edgecom in his NBA debut drops 34 on the Celtics here. Edgecom and Maxi combined for 74 points. Nobody else from the Sixers did anything. I mean, Joel Embiid did absolutely nothing in this game. Got benched in the fourth quarter. Maxi Edge just took over. Quinton Grimes hit a huge three with about three and a half minutes left where the Celtics did not really score there after they had two points in the next two and a half minutes after that. sparked a 13-2 run. And uh look, man, we can we can point to different roster deficiencies here as you know, the Celtics didn’t have a lot of go-to guys down the stretch. Yeah, they have a great catch catch and shoot, you know, good spot up players and Derek White and Peyton Pritchard, but outside of Jaylen Brown, man, who had a really good game tonight, I really wish he got one of those last two looks to end the game. Um, you know, you don’t have a lot of shot creators, like real real consistent shot creators in the flow of a half court offense other than Jaylen Brown. So, we’re pointing out a couple of bad things right now. I think the perimeter defense wasn’t great. Um, the rebounding wasn’t great overall, but there were some positives, man. I actually think that the interior for Boston showed really good flashes, especially scoring the basketball. Um, we’ll talk about Nemas Kada in a little bit because his Celtics debut was awesome. Did foul out in this one, but we’ll talk about him on the back half today’s show. We’ll talk about more Celtics right now because Derek White had a really solid second half, man. Ice cold in that first half. He was one for six from three-point range. Ended up, you know, shooting three of seven the rest of the way there and hit some pretty big shots for Boston down the stretch. Again, like he’s going to have to be an all-star level player this season if Boston wants to contend in the Eastern Conference. So, look, man, I I was pleased with the performance for the most part. Just, you know, you got you got to be able down the stretch to close these games. You can’t allow 17 to seven runs to end it. Um, and and and you you’ll be in better spots the rest of the way. Defensively, uh, as far as debuts go for Anthony Simons, I actually thought he was pretty solid, man. I actually thought he was pretty good. Had 13 points in his Celtics debut. But what I really want to talk about as far as the good news goes here for Boston is the on ball defense. I actually didn’t think he he he was as bad of a defender as advertised to all of us over the offseason. I mean, he was attacking um Joel Embiid in certain postup situations where he wasn’t looking, trying to get a swipe away from the from the basketball. He was jumping some passing lanes. Um he had a chase down as well with a strip that was really really solid. Like you saw some defensive activity and effort from the Celtics today. And I think that’s the overarching good news is that this team gave you 110% effort. Um and I wasn’t going to question that when you brought in guys that were unproven. Guys on contract years like Simons, Josh May not unproven. Um Payton Pritchard assuming the starting point guard role. Nemiac Kada assuming the starting center role for the first time. Gayla Brown assuming the starting, you know, number one option role really for the first time in his career. These guys were going to be hungry. They were always going to out go out there and show you effort. And I I was really proud of the effort that they put out there in this ball game. Now, we’ll talk about more performances in this game in just a moment, specifically highlighting Nimia Kada because that is the great news tonight. The Celtics have a starting center that they can feel confident in. We’ll talk about that in just a moment. Before we do, make sure you go down below, hit that thumbs up icon, like today’s video if you want more Celtics content. If you guys want to see us uh get back on track here with a win against the Knicks on Friday, who also started 1 and 0 as well. We’ll talk about Neas Kate in just a moment. First though, got to tell you guys tell you guys about our sponsor and that is Prize Picks. Tonight’s live stream is brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every single day, but on Prize Picks, being right can get you paid. It can actually get to up to 2,000 times your money watching your Boston Celtics in one single daily fantasy sports lineup because it’s daily fantasy made easy. All you guys got to do is pick two to six players and just pick more or less on their projected stats. Whether it’s basketball, we got full football in full swing. We got baseball World Series coming up as well. You can mix and match all these different sports on Prize Pix. It’s the best daily fantasy sports app in the game because we know a lot of apps out there offer this stuff. But Prize Pix is the best because they offer the best features like Stacks, the only daily fantasy sports app that you can pick multiple stat projections from the same player in the same lineup. So, if you wanted to take Jaylen Brown points, Jaylen Brown steals, Jaylen Brown blocks, all in the same lineup, you can do so only on Prize Fix. My lineup for tonight’s basketball action as the season gets underway. Going across two games here, I got OG Anobi in the Knicks versus Cavs game to have less than 15 and a half points. I have Sam Merrill of the Cavs, that sharpshooter to have more than one and a half three-pointers made. That’s a de a goblin pick, which is a little bit less of a payout, but it’s higher chances of hitting. I got Anthony Simons more than 16 and a half points in that Boston versus Philly game. And Derek White more than 31 and a half points, reowns assists, as well as Quinton Grimes, a guy who is, you know, hurt the Celtics a couple of times in his career, more than 14 points. You can tell my picks or fade them, but trust me, I went five for five on my picks on prize picks in the opener last night. Just do it on prize picks. Download the app today. And for new users, you can get $50 in your account in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. But you got to use our promo code CLNS. So download the Prize Pix app, use the code CLNS for $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup prize picks. It’s good to be right. Neus Kada, what a debut for the Celtics new starting center. The great news from this ball game is that we have a starting center that we can feel confident in. 17 points, eight rebounds after I think only having one in the first half. So like he really stepped things up over the final 24 minutes of this game and unfortunately just did foul out there with about 2 minutes remaining and the Celtics couldn’t rebound when he came out of the game. They allowed an offensive board from the Philadelphia 76ers. They allowed uh the Celtics couldn’t get any offensive boards themselves when they got shots around the rim. Like if he’s not going to be out there to close games, they’re going to be really struggling. when you don’t have Jason Tatum and his defensive rebounding prowess and his overall rebounding prowess at the end of ball games like you’re going to be out of luck. And Xavier Tilman did come up with a clutch rebound. I want to talk a little bit about him as well because he he was honestly really solid tonight. I thought he played good defense. You know, he was playing within the flow of the offense. Didn’t necessarily make any threes. Don’t really want to see him take too many to be quite honest with you, but he he showed out. He did his thing. Uh Chris Bucher did a little bit. I mean, I I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw from him and his debut, but that’s going to come in time. A lot of these guys are going to get acclimated together and all that good stuff. I was really just overall impressed with what we saw from Kada. Didn’t necessarily play, you know, crazy good interior defense. Didn’t have any blocks, didn’t have any steals in this game registered, but Joel Embiid did nothing on him all game. Couldn’t get into any type of groove. Ended up getting benched, like I said again, in that fourth quarter. Um, so I was impressed in Kada and so is Joe Mazula. He said, quote, “He’s got it in him to be good for us. The standards high for us. I thought he answered the call and he just has to keep getting better and better.” So the great news is our coach is confident in Necada. You should be, too. If you want to keep this this thing up and continue to put up performances like this, type his jersey number down in the comment section. Give me a couple 88s. Show your support for the new Celtic starting center. All right, a couple more things here because Joe Mazoula did go with some different lineups here. A lot of different lineup combinations. We saw a little Luca Garza. Those minutes were brutal. We did not see Ugo Gonzalez in this game. So interesting there. But I I I I didn’t mind what we saw from Boston tonight. A lot of fixable stuff. They shot 25% from three guys. Like you’re not going to win games shooting 11 for 45 or whatever it was from three-point range. So we’ll be okay. It those numbers will get better. like promised it’s Missoula ball. We We all know that that things regress to the mean eventually. This team’s going to put up a lot of threes. We can’t blame all the threes as well, by the way. We cannot blame the volume of three-point shots on the Celtics loss here. They shot more twos than threes. They got to the free throw line a ton. Just weren’t able to close it in the last 12 minutes of the game. And that happened last season with, you know, much better talent level across the board for the Boston Celtics. But as far as some lineups that they went with, they went with a couple three guard lineups here with Derek White, Payton Pritchard, and Anthony Simons all on the court at the same time. And they were interesting. They were fun, they were fast, they were getting up and down the floor. And Joe Mazula had a couple of things to say about them. He said, “Good speed, good pace. I thought we really generated a lot of cross matches with where they were able to get out there.” And that’s what the Celtics try to do, man. They try to hunt mismatches all game long. He said, “I thought they did a good job of finding opportunities for themselves, but also creating, I didn’t think they do the best overall job at creating shots for themselves in this game personally, but he said, I think as they start to understand spacing and learning, I think at the end, we just have miscommunication on late game action.” That’s just having an understanding of that. But like the pace they play with, the spacing that they had, and having those three guys that can attack the paint and penetrate and finish or kick is going to be good for us. And that’s true, man. I mean, Anthony Simons had some awesome uh, you know, rim runs today down the lane where their Sixers are playing a couple of Olay defenses. Jaylen Brown had a couple as well attacking the rim. It’s It’s going to be fine. This is a brand new team and and and things are going to be okay. It’s it’s it’s a gap year, folks. Like, it’s a gap year at the end of the day. Uh, is this team going to win 60 games? No. But, uh, is it going to be a fun 82 game viewing experience? I think so. Just got to get Jaylen Brown the ball there at the end of the game there on those final two possessions. Joe Mazula calls a mis miscommunication. Well, that means it’s something that we can shore up here uh before we get out there on Friday against the Knicks. If you guys are going to be with us on Friday against the Knicks, drop a shamrock emoji down in the chat right now as uh that will do it for today’s edition of Celtics today by Chad Sports. Make sure you are subscribed once again. We just passed 84,000 subs on the channel. We’re going to be live again on Friday for Celtics versus Knicks. We’ll see you guys all then. And as always, let’s go Se’s. [Music]

Boston Celtics news today comes after the first game and first loss of the 2025-26 NBA Season for your Boston Celtics to the Philadelphia 76ers, 177-116. Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CLNS and use code CLNS and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Boston Celtics highlights came in a huge third quarter propelled by Derrick White and Jaylen Brown, but the Celtics could not string together enough solid possessions to close this game, and the 76ers, including Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, took advantage. The good news for the Celtics is that they have found a starting center that Celtics fans and Joe Mazzulas have confidence in. Celtics Today host Tyler Smith breaks down all the latest Celtics rumors and news from the season opener on today’s Boston Celtics YouTube video.

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Boston Celtics highlights vs. Philadelphia 76ers:
– Jaylen Brown: 25 PTS, 6 REB, 4 AST, 9/18 FG, 2/4 3PT
– Derrick White: 25 PTS, 3 REB, 4 AST, 7/20 FG, 4/13 3PT
– Neemias Queta: 17 PTS, 8 REB, 7/8 FG, 6 PF

76ers highlights vs. Celtics:
– Tyrese Maxey: 40 PTS, 6 AST, 13/24 FG, 7/9 3PT
– VJ Edgecombe: 34 PTS, 7 REB, 13/26 FG, 5/13 3PT
– Dominick Barlow: 13 PTS, 8 REB, 5 AST, 4/8 FG

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Deuce Tatum hand-selected these Boston Celtics YouTube videos for you to check out:
– 🚨MAJOR Jaylen Brown Update Before Season Opener + Starting Center REVEALED | Celtics News – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCKe-7L8OKI
– 🚨Boston Celtics Make MORE Roster Moves Before NBA Season Opener | Celtics News – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spkTiBw-PKU
– 🚨Jaylen Brown INJURY In Celtics Preseason Finale | Boston Celtics News – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3upKTZ-Wkk

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