BOSTON — Give credit to Boston Celtics fans: They followed the script Saturday night at TD Garden, and followed it beautifully.
The Celtics were mounting a furious fourth-quarter comeback in their Game 7 showdown against the Philadelphia 76ers, on four different occasions closing to within one point of tying it up, and because of that, yes, absolutely, the place was going nuts. Because this was going to be The Next Great 21st-century Boston Sports Comeback, right?
It was going to be Dave Roberts stealing second base in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. It was going to be the New England Patriots mounting a furious comeback against the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51, thereby turning “28-3” into a catchphrase. It was going to be something diehard Celtics would never forget.
Actually, it was none of those things. The Celtics did close the gap, and the Garden did rock, but it turned out to be all smoke, all mirrors. And in many ways, it was a lost cause long before the 76ers had emerged with a 109-100 victory, making this the first time the Celtics, in their long and mostly glorious history, have ever blown a 3-1 series lead.
Consider that as far back as a couple of hours before tipoff, the news came down that Jayson Tatum would miss the game due to right knee tenderness.
Consider that Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla posted a starting lineup that included Baylor Scheierman, Luka Garza and Ron Harper Jr.
And then the game began, and Joel Embiid scored 10 of his game-high 34 points as the 76ers took a 32-19 lead. No need to mention the appendectomy Embiid recently underwent. Might as well have been 10 years ago.
The record will show that the Celtics fought back from a 15-point deficit, and for one, brief shining moment in the second quarter, took a 37-36 lead on the strength of a Payton Pritchard 3-pointer.
The record will show that the Celtics went into the fourth quarter trailing by 13 points and, to repeat, on four different occasions, cut the gap to one. But trading baskets, over and over, doesn’t get you a lead. The last 1-point deficit came with 3:49 remaining in the game, this after Neemias Queta sank two free throws to make it 99-98. The Celtics scored just two points the rest of the way, on a Pritchard layup.
Now that the Garden has closed for playoff business for the season — the Bruins, remember, were eliminated by the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night — it’ll be interesting in the days and weeks to come to see how Celtics fans react to this first-round exodus. Phone lines will be open, as the talk-show hosts say. But Mazzulla is already getting the word out: He’s proud of his team.
“Watching the guys compete the way they did is important to me, and I appreciate that,” he said.
Jaylen Brown, who led the Celtics with 33 points, echoed that sentiment.
“Great season,” Brown said, adding there’s “nothing to hang my head over, nothing for our team to hang their heads over.”
Brown was asked if he views any team that falls short of a championship as a failure.
“It’s hard to reflect on it right now, because it’s so fresh in the moment,” Brown said. “Obviously, this organization is used to playing later into the (postseason). I think this is my first first-round exit. This season, what the expectations were and how we came out, we rose to meet that level of uncertainty with this group. There’s nothing more that I could ask for.”
Well, no, there was more, much more. Brown was presumably talking about how this was going to be a so-called “gap year” for the Celtics, what with Tatum expected to be out for much if not all of the season. But Tatum returned, and that’s when the expectations changed. And, again, the Celtics had a 3-1 lead in this series. Even taking into account that Tatum missed Game 7, the Celtics still lost Games 5 and 6.
Despite the comebacks, the Celtics lost to a Philly team that has a healthy and contributing Embiid to take them to the next level. As for the Celtics, they are on to next season.
“There will be changes” is what many teams say at the end of every season, win or lose, but this is different. New ownership has stepped in. Celtics fans needn’t fear a teardown, but that new ownership means new opinions, new eyeballs, new suggestions.
It’s always worth noting that Boston’s Big Four sports franchises — Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins — have combined to win 13 championships this century. And at this moment, the Celtics might be the best-positioned to win the next one. So there’s that.
But not this season. They looked like they had a chance at the beginning of this series. They might not have won it all, but we’ll never know because of what they let slip away in the first round.
