The Celtics built a seven-point first-quarter lead behind Jayson Tatum’s 11 points and Philly’s cold shooting. Paul George helped the Celtics win the early second-quarter minutes, but the Sixers were able to get to the line a lot and get out in transition to keep the deficit at 11 at halftime. That was important because they were able to put a huge run together to tie the game at 79 with about four minutes to go in the third, but the Celtics answered with an avalanche of threes, including a 17-0 run to start the fourth quarter, to blow the game open. Celtics win 123-101. 

Box Score

WHAT THE BOX SCORE TELLS YOU

- Holy Paul George, Batman: He finished with 36 points on 14-22 shooting and 6-11 from three, but 14 of those (and three of his triples) came after the game was tied at 79 and the Celtics outscored the Sixers 44-22. A lot of that came with Tatum on the bench to start the fourth. 

“Those are the minutes that I’m always trying to win to give him as much rest as possible,” George said after the game. “When he comes [back] in … he can come back and kind of flow, get himself back going. So those minutes are very important to me and I definitely value that opportunity being on the floor and try to lead my way.”

- Live by the three: Boston was 22-49 from three in this game, doubling up the Sixers, who went 11-37. Four different Celtics (George, Tatum, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser) had four or more three-pointers. 

- Free throw disparity: That +33 from behind the arc made up for a 19-point deficit at the free throw line. Boston only went to the line five times while the Sixers shot 28, making 24. 

- Jaylen Brown was ineffective: He got into foul trouble early on and only scored 13 points. He also turned it over four times and was -27, 10 points worse than anyone else on the Sixers. 

WHAT THE BOX SCORE DOESN’T TELL YOU

- The Celtics negated Jaylen Brown: I need to mention this here, but I’m going to expand on it down below as part of revisiting the preview, because this was a major key to the game for me. The Celtics know exactly how to frustrate Brown, and they did it in this game. They used his aggression against him effectively, and he was a non-factor.

- The offense is flowing: They had 28 assists and are currently seventh in the NBA in assists per game. I haven’t seen much stagnation at all this season, and that’s a testament to the team sticking with their play style. That’s where Joe Mazzulla’s coaching shines through, because no one is breaking from the plan. 

- Payton Pritchard deserves some love too: He hit the first of four straight threes to end the third quarter and then the first two threes of the fourth. THAT’S when George hit his first of three triples and the Sixers called a timeout. Nine points of the 21-3 run afer the tie came from Pritchard.

- This could have been much, much worse for Philly: Tyrese Maxey is bailing them out a lot. He and VJ Edgecombe are way too good to be minimized in this Sixers offense … an offense that is still struggling. Joel Embiid also continues to pile up free throws, which kept the Sixers alive for a while.

- Jayson Tatum killed a guy: It was LeBron James. 

He did it AGAIN. pic.twitter.com/PoESJdEndN

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 11, 2026

ROOKIE YEAR THROWBACK‼️ pic.twitter.com/ZbprDrgYZA

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 11, 2026

This was actually a big play. Yes, the Sixers tied the game after that, but the Celtics needed a spark to keep their energy up. This was huge, beyond highlight purposes.

- LeBron James and Joel Embiid are slow right now: LeBron did a great job of rebounding and advancing the ball, so he’s still making an incredible impact on the game. Also, there’s no way he’s giving it 100% out there right now. The same goes for Embiid, but for different reasons. I think Embiid has maybe two months of good basketball in him per season. He doesn’t care to make November one of them.

- Mitchell Robinson is still a work in progress: I don’t want to belabor the ongoing point, but Robinson looked out of shape and was a big problem in the third quarter as the Sixers were making their comeback. 

REVISITING THE PREVIEW

Here’s what I wrote before the game. Let’s see how I did.

“Protect the rim: The Sixers generate a blistering 1.18 Points Per Shot (PPS) at the rim on a 59.0% Effective Field Goal percentage (eFG%). Meanwhile, pull-up jumpers (0.77 PPS) and deep mid-range shots (0.65 PPS) are killing the Sixers offensively. So the plan should be to chase over the top of screens and entice the Sixers to shoot mid-range shots with drop coverage.”

The Sixers still got to the rim too much, taking 37% of their shots there in this game. Luckily for Boston, Philadelphia shot 62.5% at the rim, according to Cleaning the Glass. So I suppose they did protect the rim to some degree. I think they could have done better in the third, which would have prevented the comeback. 

“Avoid foul trouble: Joel Embiid and LeBron James love to live at the line and bait defenders into fouls. Neemias Queta is foul-prone and Mitchell Robinson is still a step slow as he works his way into shape. I give Luka Garza all the respect in the world, but he CANNOT guard Embiid. He might be able to thrive in the non-Embiid minutes, but not against him. The other centers need to defend without fouling. Discipline is key.” 

Well, technically the Celtics did avoid foul trouble, so we didn’t see much of Garza forced into action. The Celtics did put the Sixers on the line 28 times, so I can’t take full credit here, but only Derrick White got to four fouls. Everyone else committed three or fewer. I’ll take that as a win, despite the free throw disparity. 

“Weaponize Jaylen Brown: Distract him. Get him too focused on himself. And if he’s determined to take Jayson Tatum out of the offense, then run Tatum off the ball and make Brown run through every screen in the world. Maybe they use Tatum’s actions as a decoy to create space for Paul George or Derrick White to drive.”

This was a dead-center bullseye for me. They took him into the corner on the first play of the game and spent a lot of the first quarter playing four-on-four with no help from Brown, who was too focused on denying Tatum. The kicker is that Brown’s denial didn’t even work. Tatum scored 21 points on 8-17 shooting and 3-7 from three, and 11 of his points came in that first quarter, and Brown fell into foul trouble. 

“Prediction: I don’t think Jaylen Brown can resist temptation, so I think he’s going to try to personally hang 50 on the Celtics tonight … I also think Joe Mazzulla knows every weakness Brown has, and will be waiting with late doubles and jumps on his spin moves to force turnovers, either by stripping him clean or getting into passing lanes. I still think this game is a close one, but I think Brown will have a lot of turnovers that lead to a Celtics 109-103 win.”

This didn’t go exactly like I thought. Some of it was right, but Brown didn’t try to force too much offense. Maybe it’s because he had to sit for longer than he wanted to. He did turn the ball over four times, basically a third of Philly’s total. And Boston did score 21 points off 14 Sixers turnovers, which ended up being +12 in that category. And the Sixers did score 101, which is only one basket off what I predicted, so I’ll accept at least some partial credit, even though it ended up being a blowout.