cathartic return to Madison Square Garden<\/a>).<\/p>\nAhead of Game 1 against Philadelphia, which is set for 1 p.m. on Sunday at TD Garden, Tatum said he enters his eighth career postseason with \u201cmore of a sense of gratitude than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cMy perspective has changed these last 48 weeks. I remember when I got injured, there was a lot of uncertainty. The playoffs wasn\u2019t a sure thing. And now that I get that opportunity, I couldn\u2019t be more happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
C\u2019s keying on Maxey<\/p>\n
With 76ers center Joel Embiid\u2019s postseason status unclear following his emergency appendectomy last week, the Celtics\u2019 primary focus as their first-round series tips off will be containing Philly\u2019s other top star, Tyrese Maxey.<\/p>\n
Mazzulla said Boston\u2019s defense will need to be \u201celite\u201d against the All-Star guard, with a particular emphasis on limiting his transition opportunities and keeping him off the foul line. Maxey, the NBA\u2019s fifth-leading scorer during the regular season, averaged 30.0 points, 8.8 assists and 7.3 free-throw attempts per game across his four matchups with the Celtics.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe obviously can get to any spot that he wants,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cI think the things that he tests is transition and free throws. You could look up at a box score and he can have 40 points, and half of those could be in transition or at the free-throw line. So he tests your discipline to be able to defend him. Not only in transition, trying to keep him off the free-throw line, but also he can score at all three levels. He can get layups, he can shoot pull-up twos and he can create separation on threes.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have to be disciplined in what we\u2019re taking away and what we\u2019re willing to live with, and we\u2019ve got to be great at the things we can control. And then we need elite individual defense throughout games, which our guys are capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reserve wing Jordan Walsh had success against Maxey in previous Celtics-Sixers games, holding him to four points on 1-of-10 shooting with one shooting foul during the regular season. Baylor Scheierman drew the primary matchup against Maxey in the teams\u2019 most recent meeting, and Maxey shot 3-for-10 with one drawn foul against him as the Celtics won 114-98 on March 1. Maxey totaled 33 points in that game but attempted 34 field goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he\u2019s a really good player, obviously, getting close to 30 a game,\u201d Celtics wing Sam Hauser said. \u201cWhat makes him really good is he\u2019s super fast, and he can stop on a dime, and that\u2019s hard to guard. He creates a lot for their team, and we just do our best to make it as difficult as we can on him. It\u2019s not going to be perfect every time. He\u2019s definitely going to score some buckets, but if we\u2019re making him work for it, I think that\u2019s a win for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Historic rivalry<\/p>\n
This will be the 23rd postseason meeting between the Celtics and 76ers, by far the most between any two NBA franchises. No other teams have met more than 15 times in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The teams\u2019 first came way back in 1952, when Bob Cousy and the C\u2019s beat the then-Syracuse Nationals 2-0 in the Eastern Division semifinals. Their most recent was the 2023 East semis, during which Boston rallied from a 3-2 series deficit to win in seven.<\/p>\n
Mazzulla said he\u2019s sure the decades-long rivalry \u201cmeans a ton to the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t run from the fact that, obviously, these two teams have played against each other a long time,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to have an understanding of that, but you just can\u2019t be distracted by the stuff that we have to execute on both ends of the floor and focusing on us being our best and knowing we\u2019re going to get their best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum has played 16 career playoff games against the Sixers, including his 51-point Game 7 masterpiece three years ago. Co-star Jaylen Brown has played 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum\u2019s reintegration has gone more smoothly than the Celtics star expected. Tatum, now six weeks removed from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,56795,1207,78,77,2675,6,1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-712572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-celtics-76ers","14":"tag-celtics-playoffs","15":"tag-jaylen-brown","16":"tag-jayson-tatum","17":"tag-joe-mazzulla","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-tyrese-maxey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116421120702454239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}