Although the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers met four times during the regular season, each team will have a different look Sunday afternoon when they meet in Boston for Game 1 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.<\/p>\n
Boston and Philadelphia split their four games in the regular season, but three of those were played before mid-November.<\/p>\n
The seventh-seeded 76ers didn\u2019t play the second-seeded Celtics after Jayson Tatum returned from a ruptured Achilles, and the Boston didn\u2019t face Philadelphia with Paul George in the lineup. George was injured when the season began and then missed games in February and part of March after he was suspended 25 games for violating the NBA\u2019s anti-drug policy.<\/p>\n
Tatum averaged 21.8 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 16 games (all starts) during the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when I got injured, there was a lot of uncertainty,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cThe playoffs weren\u2019t a sure thing, and now that I get that opportunity, I couldn\u2019t be more happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatum\u2019s return gave the Celtics an exceptional 1-2 scoring punch, with Jaylen Brown averaging a team-high 28.7 points per game.<\/p>\n
George has averaged 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists while shooting 41.5% from 3-point range in 10 games since returning from his suspension.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had my share of playing Boston with Jayson and Jayen, so I know what to expect,\u201d George said. \u201cWe\u2019re playing against winners; we\u2019re playing against champions. This is where they play their best basketball. We respect that. But we\u2019re going to have to challenge that. They\u2019ve been great for a couple years now. They\u2019re a well-oiled machine over there. Great coach. Great roster. Two studs, superstars over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s uncertainty regarding the status of Philadelphia\u2019s Joel Embiid entering the series. Embiid had an appendectomy during the final week of the regular season, and the 76ers haven\u2019t announced a timetable for when he will return.<\/p>\n
Embiid was limited to 38 games this season, but averaged 26.9 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game when he was able to take the court. The 76ers play at a slower pace when Embiid is in the lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we have to be at our best because they\u2019re going to be at their best,\u201d Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. \u201cPhilly\u2019s a great team as you saw throughout the season. To get to this point with all the injuries that they\u2019ve had, and to be where they\u2019re at now, it\u2019s going to be a tough test for us. We gotta be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philadelphia secured the No. 7 seed with Wednesday\u2019s 109-97 victory against the Orlando Magic in the play-in tournament. Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia\u2019s leading scorer at 28.3 points per game, scored 31 points during that victory.<\/p>\n
Boston hasn\u2019t played since it wrapped up the regular season with a 113-108 victory over Orlando on Sunday. The Celtics won that matchup despite resting their top seven scorers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re playing great,\u201d 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. \u201cThey\u2019ve played really great all season. They got a bunch of guys that have been together \u2014 I mean, a core group of guys that have been together for a long time through a lot of winning and a lot of deep runs. Tremendous, tremendous challenge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers met four times during the regular season, each team will have a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,6,678,207,3817],"class_list":{"0":"post-713353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","13":"tag-philadelphia76ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713353","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=713353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}