Post Game Thread - NBA: The 76ers defeat the Celtics on Apr 21, 2026, the final score is 97-111.
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Just the Jays and a bunch of bricks tonight. Bring on game 3. I still believe!
The Celts do this every couple weeks. Still not hard to have PTSD after the Knicks series last year
This game was nothing like any of those Knicks games last year. The Knicks weren’t really ever hot from 3. We went up 20 and would get crazy trigger happy from 3 and blew those games.
Philly was lights out this whole game. Even making contested mid range shots all night.
This was like the Miami game 2 in 2024
Came here to say this lol. Very similar. Probably goes 6 now which sucks but it is what it is. Especially if Embiid comes back at some point
That’s what I thought all game. Great comparison.
Yeah Philly deserved this one can’t be that mad
I’m right there with you. It also felt like that Minnesota game in March. They were just missing everything.
Philly shot the lights out but we NEED to come out with a different defensive scheme and not just watch them shoot open shots all night. C’s in 5
The spirit of Ime Udoka during the 2022 finals came into the arena
I just can’t believe Joe didn’t make any adjustments after it was clear the drop coverage wasn’t working.
I think he was daring the Sixers to keep making them. Unfortunately … they did. Now we need to adjust, cause we can’t let them shoot the lights out again.
I genuinely don’t think the 76ers can replicate the shooting night they had. Sure maybe VJ and Maxxy can get hot. Overall the whole team shot lights out tonight. We just had a really bad shooting night
It is really tough to beat a team when you shoot poorly and the opponent looks like they’re shooting into the ocean.
But that’s where defense comes in and the effort was sorely lacking. You simply can’t shoot that bad and play lackluster on the other end. Recipe for disaster.
Vuc may have to take a seat …
Not that the defense wasn’t bad. Just really easy for the defense to look terrible when everyone is making shots. I also don’t understand what value Vuc brings when he’s not making shots. I think Garza should take Vuc mins
If you keep allowing them open threes they’re going to keep hitting them.
Even if they stop hitting them at such a high clip, one big run of hot shooting is all it can take to put the game away permanently.
We said the same thing about Gabe fucking Vincent and that other douche bag on the Miami Heat.. this does not go well if we don’t get our defensive shit together.
Offensively, they are what they are, I don’t think anybody’s gonna change the Celtics mindset that the three ball is something to keep shooting even when you’re making only 26% of your shots… But they are supposedly an elite defensive team, let’s hope next game and the rest of this series
He didn’t make any adjustments because them mfers were hitting everything. Stick with the game plan and see if the shooting cools down. Which it did, no one other than Brown and Tatum could hit a shot tonight. We shouldn’t overreact to 1 game. We getting great looks, just couldn’t make 1 tonight.
It’s the playoffs. You don’t have time to wait and see.
Let me ask, “why even have a coach?”
The problem was he saw it work twice and we cut the lead to 2, but its pure idiocy to run it back 3 more times assuming NBA players cant hit open shots. Its like hitting on roulette twice in row and forgetting the house still had the advantage.
agreed, reminds me of a degenerate gambler thinking they’re on a heater
I think the problem is: they don’t have the roll threat and we play drop coverage. Should have blitz a little bit.
I think we should honestly try some Tatum at the 5 minutes. Bring in Walsh, Hugo and Baylor to go with JB and White and see how that goes. Not like Drummond or Bona are stars so lets try Tatum guarding them.
Yeah we literally should’ve lost that by 30
That was a pitiful defensive tactic, why are we leaving VJ and maxey wide open… they’re phillys entire offense..?
They didn’t just shoot the lights out you let them take 90 shots from two
Not gonna win any games when only two players score double figures. Gotta be better on Friday.
Your classic game 2 dud lol
39%/26%… what is this, the metacritic and rotten tomatoes scores for the Michael Jackson movie?
Yeah we fucking suck at Game 2’s bro, lmao
Was just gonna say this historically it’s always a disappointing game 2
We’re always good for one shit performance a series. It’s basically a tradition at this point
except for the Knicks last year when had four s***** performances?
You can say shitty on the internet
Garza hustled more in his 2 mins of garbage time than Vuc has since we traded for him.
Vuc is shit
Vuc does not belong on a playoff roster. There’s a reason he’s never been part of a run. He’s a proven loser
Would love to see more Garzilla in Game 3
This is a Mazzulla loss and he won’t change
this is giving me vibes of the 2024 miami series, im confident the outcome will be the same
Absolutely NO reason Baylor or even Ron Harper Jr. to NOT play next game if Pritchard plays scared
And double goes for Garza, if Vuc is horrific defensively
Baylor could’ve been a lifesaver but we kept going to Pritch and an ice cold DWhite
Same thing happened the next series against the Cavs. Won both series in 5. Not worried in the slightest.
This Celtics team isn’t even half as good as that Celtics team was lol
I disagree. I don’t think this team is better than the 2024 team obviously, but I don’t think the gap is bigger than you think.
I also don’t believe this 76ers team without Embiid is as good as the Heat or the Cavs we faced in 2024.
Same exact loss in game 2 for Heat and Cavs series that year. Same exact story. Not having that game be game 1 (see knicks) gives us much more leeway, we’ll be fine.
Checks out with the random hot shooting display, our brick laying, and their best player being out. Got confidence that they’ll lock in for the next 2 games, but Vuc NEEDS to be benched for Garza
It’s exactly like game 2 against miami. The drop coverage gave away a few really egregious open 3s, but even with philly shooting 50% from 3 and making a ton of contested midrangers, they only scored 111. This game was really about the offense getting almost nothing from anyone other than the Jays, would’ve won with even a C- shooting night
This is more Knicks than Miami. We just kept shooting threes, forget mismatches, forget percentage, forget driving to the rim. Joe just stands there watching them jack up brick after brick
This is not Knicks. We lost control of Knicks from Game 1. This series is still tied.
But this team isn’t 2024. That team was historically dominant.
Baylor needs more than 11 minutes
And Vuc needs way less than 18
He was their 3rd leading scorer 🤷
1.8 hopefully next game
Vuc trade looking like hot shit. Such a defensive liability and cannot stretch the floor properly.
can we clone queta
Definitely may be the end of the road for him after this game . Maybe Joe was looking for an excuse
I truly believe they were trying to dump salary and the trade on paper made sense. Oh well.
Yes, but I still don’t understand why we are trying to force this trade to be redeemable. Maybe it could have worked if Vuc hadn’t gotten hurt and had more time with the team. It’s already the playoffs, and not giving Garza any meaningful minutes today was, in my opinion, more than questionable.
Give me all the quetas
What he lacks in defense and offense, he also lacks in rebounding
The fact that we had to rely on him so much says a lot about Joe’s faith in Queta
We probably need a better center if we want to win banner 19
It must be Joe’s lack of faith in Queta that keeps Garza on the bench when he is miles better than Vuc, or that made him play KP last year, when he was shit, until the elimination.
I haven’t been this down on a player in years and years. His screens are so miserable, he has no vertical spacing, his hands have been terrible, his shot is unreliable, can’t get back, can’t box out, can’t make the cut pass….That month out was so bad for him, because he’s so alien to our system. There’s no harmony when he’s in. Makes Pritchard and White worse by proxy with his shit pick and rolls.
I’d rather see Garza minutes than Vooch
It was always hot shit…it was about getting under the luxury tax saving the owner money
50% from 3 (19-39) for Philly, never gonna beat that type of efficiency. Gg go next Cs.
Shooting 50% from three and the Celtics continue to play drop lmao
Coaching was the cause of this loss
That happens when you overhelp and concede above the break threes all game long.
Regardless of Philly’s efficiency, you’re not gonna win many playoff games in 2026 putting up 97 points
On the bright side, this may be just like that heat g2 or Cav g2 in 2024 playoff. Philly shooting 48% in 3s while VJ got his career night. On the bright side, this probably won’t be replicated in the next games
Tbf VJ had more of these games all season than games like his last game
Yeah, VJ isn’t come role player. Legit has the makings to be a future star in this league. But he’s still a young pup, so the dawgs on this team gotta put him in his place or he’ll start believing he’s a big dog — and he’s just young and dumb enough to believe it.
Cs can’t afford to play with fire
Give credit to the other team. They for embarrassed and played with nothing to lose. Need to come back on Friday and get it back.
This team never fails to have an embarassing home playoff loss due to just total lack of effort
Sucks for the fans paying out their ass to watch that garbage
Pathetic performance all around tonight. So many chances at getting over that hump and it was stupid ass hero ball or chucking threes over and over while they hit three after three on our drop coverage. Can’t win games when White, Hauser, and Pritchard decide to no show and when Mazzulla stubbornly overutilizes Vucevic, who gives you nothing, while Garza sits on the bench.
Weirdly don’t think the problem was our offense, sometimes your shots don’t fall, thought it was our defense where we didn’t offer enough resistance to Tyrese and VJ in the pnr
Every time we cut it to 4 or less we did some dumb shit and let them get back to 8-10 point lead.
I’m not understanding the commitment to giving Vuc minutes at this point. Give him some work to get him in the swing of things. But Queta and Garza all day
“Coach of the year” let PP and White shit the floor, played drop coverage all night, and played Vuc over Garza.
He’s always doing stuff that annoys me come playoff time
Mazzula is obviously a top tier coach and deserves coty. But very bad coaching today. All the things you said + not playing Baylor enough.
Not sure i agree about White either. Can’t win without him playing… but he needs to shoot better. Or maybe just shoot less 3s.
Playing Vuch over Garza shows how stupid the coach can be, literally won by 30 last game by keeping rotation fresh and ditching the guy that doesn’t fit the system yet (Vuch). Whenever Joe forces dumb ideas we lose and it’s generally in the playoffs.
Not going to overreact to one game with a significant 3pt shooting variance.
But there is far more than one game of evidence to question why Vucevic is playing over Garza. Garza is more athletic and plays with better energy, he’s been a better shooter and he’s played in the system longer. Vucevic is one of the worst defensive centers in the league and has offered nothing on offence.
Mazzula disaster class tonight
How is he so content watching maxey and edgecombe just walk into wide open threes all night instead of getting Queta to play at the level? Why is Vuc getting so many minutes? Why did Schierman just fall out of the rotation after playing so well in the regular season?
This should just be an outlier game and I’m confident we can still win in 5 but wow this was a truly horrific performance
Why did he leave Porz to die vs the Knicks ? Why did he keep smart in over white vs the heat . He can’t adjust in game and our fans are too stupid to see it
Listen I don’t think Mazulla is beyond criticism but christ guys he just led a team with an over over/under of 40 to 56 wins.
Anytime you ask coaches/players about “in-game adjustments”, they always say it’s the single most overstated thing in fan/media discourse. If they were as reactive as fans are to the results of a strategy, it’d be unsustainable chaos. They made a decision on how they wanted to approach tonight’s game & it didn’t work. Sometimes the other team has the answers & makes the shots.
way too early to fire up the trade machine, but I’m going through boxes in the garage trying to find the power cable.
Queta get the fuck up on the screens. Also, I love Joe but I would have ran Hugo a little bit over Dwhite. I get he’s a rook but so is vj. I know VJ is a better player but Hugo is a pest, I think he can keep up with him
Queta does what Joe wants him to do.
Game 2 Celtics strike again
Don’t think we should play drop coverage defense?
Felt like the same D against GSW in finals.
Open threes all night.
This was so predictable with how the media had been glazing us after game 1.
disturbing lack of baylor in this game, and the combo of pritch/dwhite with a generational stinker. really should have given harper some burn
Never play Vuc again
Derrick and Payton count your mf days.
Damn near invisible tonight
Watching them brick almost every shot was so hard. I know they bounce back but games like this are brutal
Brush it off, win out the rest of the series. Celtics in 5
Weird game. The performance speaks for itself but even the lineups were weird. No energy. Slow, clearly telegraphed, long distance passes. Like the second night of a back to back
Andre Drummond picked off a pass at the break. That about sums it up.
Like the second night of a back to back is perfectly said. Feels like they so often sink to that register when they’re in the goddamn playoffs.
couldnt hit a shot, defense was a joke, d white’s worst game as a celtic, got nothing from either of the bigs yet everyone is bitching about Vuc only. what a disaster
A lot of this loss is on Mazulla. Philly was running the same plays over and over and no adjustments were made. And I really don’t see what the staff sees in Vucevic. He is terrible and plays with no energy on either side of the ball.
The Celtics have insanely bad shooting night:
“The sixers blocked out the noise and kicked the dirt off the grave!!”
Corny ahhh
Played like fucking idiots tonight. Cant handle man to man coverage
That was unfortunate
Can someone please help me explain the continued drop coverage
One team made 49% of 3s. The other made 26%. Ball game. On to game 3
No didn’t you hear? Joe needs to be fired. We didn’t play with any effort. We need to kick White and Pritchard off the team. Jaylen is a black hole and Tatum has no jumper.
Vuc needs to get benched plays with no heart or energy out there and he’s so infuriating t watch too compared to the hustle guys
Not gonna blame lack of effort. They won the rebounding battle which is indicative of effort.
Shooting variance.
With that said, it feels like the whole team tends to become cold all at the same time. Really needed just one person to shoot respectable from three.
Jaylen shot decent. The rest of the team was 8 for 38.
Celtics shot 26% Philly shot 48% from 3. Hopefully that’s not sustainable but that’s just basketball sometimes.
Welp thanks Jayson and Jaylen
Terrible loss. We looked bad in every single aspect of the game tonight
I hope Vuc doesn’t see the floor in game 3. Also D White needs to remember how to play basketball
why do they always do this
Have faith. With that said— Vuc cannot play as many minutes as he has been. Give me Garzilla and Walsh over that cone on D.
Worst DWhite game I can recall; do Vucevic the service of not playing him anymore it is getting embarassing, the man is ASS
Philly had to shoot 50% from 3 to win. C’s in 5.
No they didn’t.
just another miami g2, opponent went on a streak, refs only call 1 side, we’ll wrap it out in 5
Got totally outplayed. Feels like the Celts thought they could just roll up and win.
Sixers got talent. They ain’t gonna roll over.
3 on 5 whenever DWhite or Pritch was in tonight, embarrassing stuff
Every time JB Posterizes someone, there’s a high chance we lose.
literally every 3 fell for philly that was insane. off day we move on
I better not see more drop coverage bullshit the rest of this series
Another game to move onto. Played like shit after a big run. Pulled it close a couple times but couldn’t get over it. Id say 6 games here if we keep leaving them open at the 3 line
Adjustments need to happen. No more drop coverage even possession againot decent shooters. Less or no Vuc, he cannot be on the floor with two of the quickest guards in the league.
Mazzulla is definitely one of the league’s best coaches. That being said, his decisions tonight should be questioned. Drop coverage is definitely a choice that should be revisioned. It’s one thing to sprinkle some deep drop coverage from now and then during the game but to keep using this same coverage throughout the entire game while they are hitting those shots is just insanity. Secondly, there’s no reason as to why Vucevic should be getting more playing time than Garza right now. If you want to give him some minutes, sure. But Garza should be getting at least the same amount of minutes as him. As of right now there’s nothing Vucevic can do better than Garza
This is the most classic Celtics game of all time. They smelled their own farts on the off day and came out flat
They always come back strong. Really not worried at all
Hauser was brutal. Terrible defense. Over helping and leaving his man open for 3 all game. A ton of wide open 3’s missed. Guys blowing by him. He’s good once every 4 games, when he’s hot from 3. Other than that he brings nothing to the team.
gotta lose 1 to win in 5. d just gotta lock down, trash the drop coverage, and just make the shots they make
White, Pritchard & Hauser with god awful games.
Well, that was frustrating.
They shot 50% from 3, we shot 25%. I’m not going to get worked up over one weird statistics night.
Pritchard, Hauser, and White were SHIT!
I don’t even want to watch the post-game stuff.
Queta does everything Vuc does but plays better defense. I don’t get it.
Having Walsh out there is like playing 4 on 5 when on offense.
Pritch and White need to hit their shots. 6ers are a terrible match up for Pritch. Lot of big guards and switchable wings.
Give me a mix of Hugo and Garza over Vuc and some of Pritchards minutes and this game would have been a lot closer.
Joe has weird loyalty to Vuc. Garza needs those minutes (in reality we desperately need another 5 in the offseason).
Vuc you owe me a TV set you punk
No one should be concerned about this loss. This is classic Celtics playoff basketball. Lose a home playoff game and then win multiple games on the road and end it in 5.
This reminded me so much of 2024 game 2 vs the Heat where we couldn’t buy a shot and they made nearly every 3.
I’m tired of this fanbase overreacting. Sure we could’ve played better. But if we made more wide open shots it would’ve been a closer game.
wtf was that man
Dwhite and Pritchard need to be in the gym until game 3 mfs couldn’t hit shit
Phi shooting 50% is cruel - can’t beat that and they won’t come close again this series. If we even shoot like 32% we win.
There just has to be a better way for us to defend the pnr when Maxey or VJ is in it with Drummond besides Queta in a drop, interested to see what Joe does. All good, we lose a silly game like this to a team that gets hot from 3 in the playoffs every year. Celtics in five or six
philly shot like 20⁄40 that’s not sustainable. celtics in 5
I just…I can’t with this team and Game 2s.
This loss will make work suck even more the rest of this week. Fml
This is a classic Celtics go cold, the opposing team shoots 50% from three game, this is why the playoffs are a best of seven. Philly isn’t gonna just roll over and they will probably push Embiid back to play, but I am still confident in Celtics in 5⁄6.
Live by the three and die by the three. Tonight we died. But that’s Mazzulla ball in a nut shell. We’ll bounce back. The good news is that we live way more often than we die.
Selltics
Guys they shot almost 50% from 3… and literally every body except for Tatum and Brown played like absolute dog shit, we should have lost that by 30.
This loss sucked.. but this is no need to get all doomer-ish. We went abnormally bad at the same time they went abnormally good. If either one of those returns to normal we win that 9⁄10 times.
I’m not overreacting—I always pegged us as 4-1.
The NBA Playoffs don’t start until this decade’s Celtics lose a game at home
What the hell was even that. We move.
The back to back 3s by Maxey right after we cut it to 2 was wraps. They shot well above average from 3 while we shot below. People need to calm down.
Ooof, the yankees-sixers double beat down Tuesday was not very fun.
You watch enough celtics you’d knew this was gonna happen
https://preview.redd.it/z0b5y6yicnwg1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3005797ebf1ba7fb09fa66b947ecbb90ed016872
Everyone losing their mind like we didnt drop an embarrassing home game to the butler-less Heat in 2024. We’re fine jesus.
Took Maxey and VJ dual 60% shooting 30 pieces with a terrible Celtics shooting night to win. Relax.
That was so ugly that I will hold my thoughts until after game 3
Another weird stat
- We made 6 less 3s on 11 more attempts
- We had more offensive rebounds
- We had more points in the Paint
- We had more free throw attempts and makes
- We only had 4 more turnovers.
Just a game of poor shooting variance, and poor defensive rotations.
If either team shot their season average rate from 3 we win this game.
If we both did we win by 15+.
Shit happens and that’s why it’s best of 7.
White and Pritchard were getting absolutely cooked by Maxey with those Drummond screens. Should’ve tried something else much sooner. Would’ve liked to see Hugo out there on Maxey (is he still hurt? odd that Shulga got minutes in garbage time but not Hugo), and definitely think Scheierman should’ve played over Sam in the 2nd half.
Oh well, just gotta hope the 3’s fall next game.
I have been making fun of the Knicks and Pistons, and it slapped me back right away. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MAN!!
Maybe they do want Boston? Idk i’m sad. Nah all good. Looked at stats. Let’s see them hit all those 3s the entire series. We actually got more rebounds and assist but those extra 3s got them the win. We are better overall.
I knew it, we are laughing and trolling hard because pistons and knicks loses game, it’s gonna hit us sometime too lol
They just kept leaving Edgecomb open
Can’t win when you’re 26% from three vs 49%, onto the next
I see why Mazzulla doesn’t want the COTY award anymore. Dude got bent over my washed Nick Nurse😭
make Joe, Pritchard, Vucevic, and White walk to Philly. are you kidding me
Can’t imagine Philly shoots like this more than 1 more game. Celtics in 5
Yes they ain’t do that again
Only thing worse than losing is the insufferable Celtics fans in the game thread.
This will light a fire in our guys. Best 3 out of 5 now. I like our chances.
Feel like we usually lose Game 2 after a decisive win. This team will respond, y’all saw the look on Tatums face at the end.
😭😭out of 😭😭😭😭😭. I know it will be ok but I wanted it to be awesome.
Who can we package Vuc + White + Pritch + Sam for
We live and we learn, on to the next one with better attitude
From 3:
Tatum 2-8 White 2-10 Hauser 2-8 Pritchard 0-4
If we hit 4 more of those and we win the game.
i’ll get called a doomer for saying how i really feel but i promise all of you that you are overrating the shit out of this teams ceiling
Loss is on white/hauser/pritchard to me. Our bigs can’t guard the perimeter so we really need our guards to step up on defense and fight every screen and help our bigs. Vuc sucks I hate watching him but I guess he can at least create his own offense on occasion
Scheduled shooting variance game. Just gotta show up and make shots, take this one on the chin.
Celtics in 5!
How is it possible for literally everyone to not be able to hit a shot all at once? So annoying when that happens
D White’s shooting is bordering on Marcus Smart level of bad this season
I don’t understand it felt like we learned our lesson this season about the 3 ball not falling so working the paint instead?? This was a bad return to last years form.
Still the 76ers sunk every shot and we had a bad whistle and shut luck. Celtics in 5!
reminiscent of game 2 against Miami in 2024. every time we had a chance they just hit timely shots. Celtics in 5.
we’ve been terrible in game 2’s for about 4 years now. its kind of unacceptable if we didnt usually pull out these series
Strikingly similar to Round 1 Game 2 of the 2024 playoffs when Miami couldn’t miss a 3 and we couldn’t execute when we needed to. That is to say, I’m not the least bit worried.
Definitely feel like Joe didn’t call enough time outs. They got a bunch of buckets in and he wasn’t stopping the bleeding . Definitely should have muted their momentum
PP played 27+ mins, he deserved about 5 of them, he was the reason 76ers were free in the perimeter
can’t win a game if you can’t make shots. They can’t keep dropping home playoff games like this.