Rob Issa, FISM News
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The Boston Celtics ruined new NBA MVP Joel Embiid’s return to the Philadelphia 76ers in Wednesday’s clash between the two rivals.
Jaylen Brown scored 25 points, Malcolm Brogdon had 23 and the Celtics routed the 76ers 121-87 to even their Eastern Conference semifinal series at 1-1.
Embiid, who captured his first Most Valuable Player award on Tuesday, had missed Philadelphia’s previous two games with a sprained right knee. Without him, the Sixers completed a four-game sweep over Brooklyn and beat the Celtics on the road in the series opener.
Embiid had 15 points and three rebounds in 26 minutes while James Harden, who scored 45 in Game 1, finished with only 12.
“The way we saw it, with what I have is supposed to be out 4-to-6 weeks or something like that,” Embiid said. “So I’m not gonna be 100% for that whole time. I’m not gonna be fully healed for that whole time. I felt pretty good to play and I feel like I can help the team defensively and offensively. Obviously, offensively, I wasn’t as aggressive. I was just trying to let the game come to me and then defensively, just protecting the rim and I think I did a fine job when it comes to that.”
The Celtics rolled past the Sixers even on a night when leading scorer Jayson Tatum was off. He had just seven points on 1-for-7 shooting while playing with foul trouble.
“I think we’ve just got to take more pride in ourselves. That’s it,” Brown said about Boston bouncing back from losing Game 1. “I just feel like we underperformed last game. We wanted to come out and play to the best of our ability. And that’s what we did.”
Brogdon nailed six of Boston’s 20 3-pointers. Derrick White and Marcus Smart each had 15 points and the defense held Philadelphia to 39.2% shooting from the floor.
“I was pleased with the types of ones that we take,” Mazzulla said of the increased 3s. “Again, I don’t want to come down and just jack them up there for the sake of jacking them up there. But I thought our defense led to our energetic offense, and I thought we did a great job not passing up open ones, and we still got good looks at the rim.
“Usually when you shoot open ones, you have less tendency to turn it over because defenses get better later in the shot clock, so we just managed the game well. Our defensive presence led to our offense, our good offense led to our defense.”
Tobias Harris led Philadelphia with 16 points. The Celtics opened up a 36-point lead in the fourth quarter, before sending starters to the bench to rest.
The series shifts to Philadelphia for Game 3 on Friday night.
“Hostile environment. But it should be fun,” Brown said. “We should all be excited to embrace that challenge.”
WARRIORS MAKING ADJUSTMENTS
The Western Conference semfinal series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors resumes Thursday night in San Francisco. The Lakers won the opener on the road behind a dominant performance from Anthony Davis with LeBron James playing a complementary role.
Stephen Curry and the defending NBA champion Warriors overcame a 2-0 series deficit in the first round against Sacramento and have to rally in this series, too.
“We’ll make those adjustments. Understand, again, quick turnaround from Game 7 against Sac, and locking in on what the Lakers do well,” Curry said. “Confidence is high, we can bounce back.”
The Lakers expect a tough challenge.
“It’s going to be a different game,” Davis said. “They’re going to make adjustments, we’re going to make adjustments, the building’s probably going to be a little bit louder, obviously they don’t want to go down 0-2. The crowd will be more into it.”