PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers took their first loss of the season as they fell to the Boston Celtics on Friday, 109-108, to begin play in the NBA Cup. They trailed by as many as 24 and eventually worked their way back to tie the game, but the Celtics eventually walked away with the win.

Tyrese Maxey led Philadelphia with 26 points, 14 assists, and eight rebounds, Embiid had 20 points and five rebounds, VJ Edgecombe had 17 points, five rebounds, and five assists, and Kelly Oubre Jr. added 17 and nine rebounds. Quentin Grimes added 16 off the bench.

Here are the three biggest takeaways following the loss:

Tyrese Maxey’s turnovers

The Sixers committed 18 turnovers as a team which led to 25 points for the Celtics, but Maxey had the most turnovers with five. The Celtics harassed him into some tough plays and the turnovers were a big reason why Philadelphia wasn’t able to get over the hump. The Sixers had their chances, but then there would be a backbreaking turnover that the Celtics would take the other way for an easy bucket. Maxey is normally a low turnover player, but he knows he has to better than he was on Friday.

“A couple of them—one time, I got hit in my arm. Turnover,” Maxey stated after the loss. “The last turnover I had, I thought Joel was popping. He’s been popping a lot, so instead of popping to the 3, he rolled so I threw it behind him. I can’t remember the other turnovers. I think one time, I was about to shoot, and Joel screamed at me, and I tried to throw it to him late, but it happens. I don’t turn the ball over often, so I mean, I guess sometimes when you’re passing to get assists, too, and you’re trying to get your teammates open, it happens, so. It’s OK.”

Another double-digit deficit becoming a trend

Regardless of when it has happened, the Sixers continue to find themselves in a deep deficit at some point during the game. They trailed the Celtics by 24 in the second quarter and that is now four of five games where the Sixers have found themselves in deep trouble. They were able to walk away with wins in the previous three instances, but the Celtics squeaked out with a win this time around and that’s something the Sixers have to nip in the bud.

“We don’t want it to be a trend, but the main thing is slow third quarters,” Maxey added. “We’ve been winning or close to winning all those games going into the half, but then we have a slow third quarter. A really bad third quarter, and we come back in the fourth and play like we were in the first and second. Tonight, we played really slow in the first quarter, we had a really bad first quarter, the rest of the three quarters, we were really good. We won every quarter after that. I think we did a really good job of, like, being resilient, but we have to put together 48-minute basketball games and once we do that, I think we’ll be even better.”

Celtics keep Edgecombe in check

The Celtics were not going to allow Edgecombe to go for the 34 points he had in the season opener back on Oct. 22. This was the second time the rookie has seen this Celtics team–the first time he has seen a team twice in his career–and it was obvious that Boston was much more aggressive with him in its schemes. Every time Edgecombe had the ball, he saw a wall of defenders that limited his driving lanes and his opportunities to score the ball. He still had 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting, but it wasn’t the same type of impact. He only took four shots in the second half as he got a little lost at times.

“I think he wasn’t alone in the lackluster energy at the start,” said coach Nick Nurse. “That, to me, is something you gotta learn. You gotta learn. Games come really fast in this league and you gotta be able to get yourself ready to go physically, mentally, etc. I think that’s the same as in Washington a little bit, but I think we talked about it. He’s a young guy. He’s gonna have lots to learn and all that kind of stuff. I think that, again, if I have to probably without looking at the film, say that we didn’t get into enough of the spread type offense and get him enough chances. When he did score, it was usually off a little bit of a kickback and, boom, there he was getting downhill. We just didn’t do that enough probably.”