Cedric Maxwell shared why he was okay with the Sixers snapping the Celtics’ 18-game winning streak in 1982: “It’s more satisfying to lose to a team like Philadelphia than to a club under .500” originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Cedric Maxwell was part of the Boston Celtics team that was rolling in the 1981-82 season, a highlight of which was the team’s 18-game winning streak. Cornbread knew the law of averages would catch up to them, and that dreaded day came on March 28, 1982. The Philadelphia 76ers own the bragging rights for snapping that winning run, pulling off a 116-98 win against their Eastern Conference rival. But rather than dismayed, Maxwell looked at the result differently.
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“We played well over a long period of time, so in a way, it’s more satisfying to lose to a team like Philadelphia than to a club under .500,” Maxwell said after that loss. “All good things must come to an end. And this is one of them,” he added.
Before that win, the Sixers had a 48-21 win-loss record. Admitting Philly was a good team at the time, the 1981 NBA Finals MVP took it in stride. Besides, Boston was 55-15 at that point, so one loss hardly altered their playoff chances.
Bad day for the Celtics
Considering that the Celtics had the best record in the league then, most expected a better effort from the defending champions. But with the Sixers employing good defense and hitting their stride, Boston struggled badly.
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The only bright spot for the Cs in that game was the efforts of Tiny Archibald and Kevin McHale. Archibald came off the bench to lead the Cs with 22 points while McHale added 19 points on his end.
Maxwell had an atrocious game, finishing with a meagre 7 points. Larry Bird, who was temporarily relegated to a sixth man role after undergoing cheekbone surgery, was no better with only 12 points to show. Larry Legend did not mince words on the lopsided outcome of that game.
“I never like to lose, but it bothers me that we should get blown out of a game by the 76ers so close to the start of the playoffs,” Bird said via the New York Times.
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Snapped streak was a warning sign
The Celtics still ended with the best record that regular season (63-19), and were automatically seeded into the Eastern Conference semifinals because of the format that the league had at the time. Their first series in the postseason was against the Washington Bullets, a team they beat 4-1 to arrange an EC Finals rematch with the Sixers.
The Celtics were confident they could get past Philly, the same team they beat in the 1981 EC Finals. However, a Game 2 loss proved pivotal, which Bird felt was the turning point of the series since it gave the Sixers home-court advantage.
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Bird singled out Caldwell Jones as the player that the Celtics overlooked. The 6-foot-11 Sixers center, who averaged only 8.3 points in that series, got away with 22 points in that Game 2 win.
“Philly came back and dumped us in the next game. The guy who really hurt us was Caldwell Jones, who didn’t shoot the ball much as a rule. We left him alone, as we normally did, and he drilled five jumpers in the second half,” Bird said. “He just demoralized us. All of a sudden, our cockiness was gone. Philly had knocked us down a peg.”
It was a disappointing end for the Celtics’ season, one that could have ended in a flourish. Instead, it was a massive lesson about humility, costing them a chance of becoming back-to-back NBA champs.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 19, 2025, where it first appeared.