PHILADELPHIA — Jaylen Brown could have conceded a pass to the wing. It would have been understandable to allow Paul George to catch the ball more than 30 feet away from the basket. The Boston Celtics, ahead by one point midway through the fourth quarter, would still have been in solid defensive position against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Instead, in a play that helped the Celtics pull out a 108-100 Game 3 victory, Brown pounced.
“All your preparation and stuff comes down to those moments,” Brown said. “Both teams are tired. Your team is maybe offensively in a little bit of a rut. You’ve got to figure out how to get a basket. You’ve got to figure out how to create some momentum for your team.”
Brown fought through an Andre Drummond screen and stayed close enough to George to deny him the ball. As Tyrese Maxey attempted to pass to George anyway, Brown jumped into the gap and deflected the pass into the backcourt. Maxey hustled to try to save the possession for his team, but Brown poked the ball away one more time and tracked it down.
Brown glanced over his shoulder as he dribbled toward the basket, waiting for Derrick White to catch up to the play. Once White had sprinted far enough to have an easy lane, Brown shoveled the ball to his teammate for a layup.
The sequence reminded Jayson Tatum why he cherishes road playoff basketball.
“I just missed being a part of moments like that, where it’s just a back-and-forth game,” said Tatum, who missed most of this season with a torn Achilles. “Sometimes we had some moments where things didn’t go our way, and then we had to fight back and get the lead. And it was just a figure-it-out type of game. Make winning plays.”
The Boston players savored their Game 3 win, which gave them a 2-1 series lead, because of the resilience it required. Maxey lit the Philadelphia crowd on fire with a second-half flurry. George kept pressure on the Celtics with a series of clutch fourth-quarter plays. The 76ers were desperate to pull ahead in the series, and the Philadelphia fans lived up to their fearsome reputation. After falling behind early in the fourth quarter, the Celtics needed to right themselves and find an escape route.
“This is what you sign up for,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “They are pushing us. We have to push them.”
When Maxey threatened to pull the series into the 76ers’ hands, the Celtics yanked it right back. Brown (25 points, seven rebounds, four assists) pumped in several key baskets. Payton Pritchard (15 points, five made 3-pointers) drilled a 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock. White (11 points, three blocks) soared to snatch a pivotal offensive rebound, which set up Tatum (25 points, five rebounds, seven assists) to drain a dagger 3-pointer. His long ball with 26.6 seconds left gave the Celtics a 106-100 lead.
“I liked our togetherness, liked our poise, liked our competitiveness,” Mazzulla said. “And (we) just kind of made plays. That’s what you’ve got to do, got to make plays, and credit to everybody — everybody that played tonight made a winning or big-time play.”
The Celtics started to feel the intensity of this Game 3 matchup outside their team hotel Friday morning while boarding a bus to shootaround.
“Construction workers were yelling at us,” White said. “You know what you get here. We’ve played a lot of big games in this arena. We know what to expect.”
Even before hearing the passion on the street, the Celtics understood the rowdy environment they would be walking into Friday night. By dropping Game 2 of the series, they had given life to a 76ers fan base that never needs much reason to display its ruthlessness. Though Joel Embiid didn’t play in Game 3, his return to portions of practice on Thursday only fueled Philadelphia’s optimism. The Celtics, who have run into Philadelphia in the playoffs several times in recent years, braced for a fiery atmosphere.
“It’s something you definitely talk about, but something you’ve got to experience, for sure,” Brown said. “And I think our team is still a young team, so this experience was great. It’s great to get these experiences and win, but when you get hit, you’ve just got to respond. … So you know, most importantly, just stay together through the adversity. But if you get hit, you’ve got to hit back.”
Though Boston has dominated the 76ers in recent playoff matchups, many of the games in those series could have gone either way. Even as a heavy favorite against the seventh seed, the Celtics understood that anything could happen in a tied series. Brown said they treated Friday night like a Game 7.
“Even though this is a long series, we definitely wanted to come back and respond after dropping one on our home floor,” Brown said. “Can’t lose two games in a row in the playoffs — it’s tough. So this was a big win for us.”
Each team understood the stakes of Game 3. Neither team backed down. Maxey struggled through the first half, but took over during parts of the third and fourth quarters. As he did, the Philadelphia crowd grew more intense. Even without Embiid, the 76ers were ready for a fight.
The Celtics bargained for one, too.
“A lot of hostility,” Neemias Queta said. “Boston and Philly, I don’t think we’re the best friends. And that’s cool as well.”
The Celtics wobbled a bit, but found their balance in time to close out the game.
“I would say the experience (of the team’s core players) showed up before that,” said Mazzulla. “I think it shows up in how you handle playoff losses, how you handle a bad game, how you handle winning. I think the experience just kind of shows up in their poise on a day-to-day basis — not getting too high, not getting too low, having a clear understanding of what’s at stake and kind of what’s needed on a consistent basis. I thought you saw that tonight.”
Boston could have folded during the fourth quarter. Maxey was hot. The fans were loud. The atmosphere could have ripped the road team apart.
Instead, the Celtics produced another big win in Philadelphia.
“You’re just throwing haymakers at each other,” Mazzulla said. “I think you realize that in the moment. So you just can’t come into this, can’t have any expectations. We’ve got to just do whatever we’ve got to do for however long it takes, and our next challenge is bouncing back, getting better, knowing that the next game is going to be even harder and even more of a fistfight.”
