Philadelphia 76ers: On Wednesday night, Jaylen Brown scored 25 points as the Boston Celtics defeated Philadelphia 121-87, spoiling Joel Embiid’s return as the new league MVP. As the Eastern Conference semi-final shifts to Game 3 on Friday, the series is tied at one game apiece.
“I believe we ought to be more proud of who we are. That’s it,” said Brown. “I just think we played poorly in the last game. We wanted to show up and play as hard as we could. That’s what we did, too.”
The Celtics banded together to plan the defeat of their rivals. Derrick White and Marcus Smart each scored 15 points, Malcolm Brogdon added 23 points, Jayson Tatum scored seven points, and the team was kept to that total.
They demonstrated their excellence on the opposite side of the court by holding the Philadelphia 76ers, who had made 17 three-pointers in their victory in Game 1, to just six of 30 attempts on Wednesday.
That sentiment was echoed by the head coach, Joe Mazzulla, who said, “I thought we just had a defensive presence about us and that led to our offence. After that, we simply played excellent, fluid offence the entire game.”
James Harden, who made only two of his 14 shots overall and missed all six of his three-point attempts, was replaced as the Philadelphia 76ers’ offensive catalyst by Tobias Harris.
In his first game back after missing the final game of the 76ers’ first-round sweep of Brooklyn due to an injured right knee, Embiid had only marginally improved stats, ending with 15 points and five blocks.
After a pregame on-court workout, doctors and training personnel gave the recent MVP winner the all-clear to play. However, he stated that it might take four to six weeks for his injury to heal. He wanted to play, even if he was rusty, for the chance to grab a 2-0 lead.
“I felt pretty good to play, and I felt like I could help the team,” he remarked. “I feel as though I just finished this. disappointed at the setback. But taking that action is a step in the right direction.”
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