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The Philadelphia 76ers bested the Boston Celtics in seven games in the first round of the NBA playoffs last season. The Celtics jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the series, but the Sixers stormed back to win three straight games to close things out.
Unfortunately for the fans in Philadelphia who were packed into the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Tuesday night, the Celtics got some revenge in the first meeting of the regular season between the teams.
Thanks to a huge advantage from 3-point range, the Celtics secured a 123-101 win over the Sixers. Here's a look at three eye-catching numbers from the contest.
It's never as simple as a single stat, but if you were looking for just one number to explain why the Sixers were bested by the Celtics on Tuesday night, it would probably be the 33-point discrepancy from beyond the arc. The Celtics couldn't miss from beyond the arc, while the Sixers seemingly couldn't buy a bucket, which has been an issue all season.
The Celtics converted 22 of their 49 3-point attempts from 3-point range, which translates to 45 percent. Meanwhile, the Sixers made just 11 of their 37 attempts, which is 30 percent. In a game that the Sixers lost by 22 points, being outscored by 33 points from long range was an enormous factor in the ultimate outcome.
Heading into the game, the Celtics had one of the highest-scoring benches in the entire NBA, while the Sixers were dead-last in bench scoring. So, this was pretty easy to predict. Boston bested the Sixers in bench scoring 49-29 on Tuesday night. Payton Pritchard led the way for Boston off of the pine with 18 points, while Sam Hauser had 12 points and Hugo Gonzalez added 10 more.
Anfernee Simons (17 points) was the only 76ers bench player to score in double figures. Moving forward, the Sixers are simply going to have to find out ways to generate more production off of the bench. Having the league's least-productive bench isn't sustainable for a team with championship aspirations.
Heading into the game, all the talk was about Jaylen Brown potentially having an epic revenge game against his former franchise, but it was actually Paul George who did that. George was excellent against the Sixers, getting to his spots, rising up and shooting with confidence. He finished with a game-high 36 points while converting 14 of his 22 field goal attempts and six of his 11 shots from beyond the arc.
PAUL GEORGE’S 36 IN PHILLY RETURN LEADS CELTICS TO #1 IN EAST 🚨
— NBA (@NBA) November 11, 2026
▪️ 14-22 FGM
▪️ 6-11 3PM
▪️ 14 straight points in 4Q
▪️ all in 30 MIN pic.twitter.com/bcys9D3xmR
George scored 36 points or more just once during his two seasons with the Sixers.