For the first time in 2024-25, the Sixers faced off against the defending champion Boston Celtics on Wednesday evening — with the entire basketball world watching on Christmas Day. And while the Sixers had their very most critical players available, they were without four depth pieces, including three rotation regulars. With Andre Drummond, KJ Martin and Eric Gordon all out in addition to rookie Jared McCain, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse had a limited number of options as he filled out his rotation.
Despite all of that — and another rough Paul George shooting performance — the Sixers pulled off their strongest victory of the year by far, a road triumph against the Celtics led by a wire-to-wire brilliant outing from Maxey, a strong showing from Embiid and the best game of the season from Caleb Martin. Here is what stood out from the Sixers' 118-114 victory after the team survived what nearly amounted to a late-game collapse of epic proportions:
Sixers finally debut anticipated starting five after early Joel Embiid scare
For the first time all year, the Sixers announced that they would start Embiid alongside Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre Jr., George and Caleb Martin—- the five-man unit expected to lead them to greater heights. And then it all vanished before the game even tipped off when Embiid tweaked his ankle during his pregame warmup routine:
[📺 LIVE] 🏀 #NBAChristmasDay
😬 Petite frayeur pour Embiid qui trébuche sur une corde durant l'échauffement… pic.twitter.com/udcLXuHNKc— NBAextra (@NBAextra) December 25, 2024
Ultimately, Embiid still suited up, and knocked down a triple from the top of the key on his first shot attempt of the night:
🎶 the first Joel 🎶 (basket tonight) pic.twitter.com/VuH4lvxGoA
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
Unsurprisingly, Embiid was being defended by longtime nemesis and former teammate Al Horford when the game began. Embiid, meanwhile, was forced to stray much farther away from the basket than he likes in order to handle his assignment defending Kristaps Porziņģis.
Maxey starts hot to give the Sixers an early lift
Embiid and George each missed three of their first four shot attempts, but Maxey got off to a stellar start, notching 10 points, four assists and two steals in the first eight minutes and changed. He capped it off with a gorgeous reverse layup against Celtics backup center Luke Kornet:
Sweet finish by Tyrese Maxey 🍬
Watch the 76ers take on the Celtics on Sportsnet. 📺 pic.twitter.com/mpkkKLD99u— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 25, 2024
Maxey entered Wednesday's game in the midst of a terrific stretch of two-way basketball, which he punctuated with a late-game takeover in the Sixers' wild and controversial Monday night victory over the San Antonio Spurs. With his two co-stars working their way into the game, the 24-year-old was happy to assert himself early on, and the Sixers were much better off for it.
Undermanned Sixers hold the fort to close opening frame, then extend lead
It was not entirely surprising that the Sixers' starting unit held up well against that of Boston, but given their number of injured depth pieces, whether or not they could sustain their competitiveness with players like Kyle Lowry and Reggie Jackson in the game was difficult to gauge.
The lineup Nurse elected to go with to close the first quarter was perhaps the smallest unit he had used all season, but the grouping of Maxey, Lowry, Jackson, Caleb Martin and Guerschon Yabusele held its own to such a degree that Nurse stuck with it for the opening minutes of the second quarter. Despite playing three smaller guards and no true bigs, the Sixers outscored Boston by three points with this unconventional unit. Six of their points came on consecutive triples from Yabusele, the former Celtics first-round pick who starred against countryman Victor Wembanyama on Monday night.
this & Yab. pic.twitter.com/3w0Kwl1pOU
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
Despite Boston predictably taking plenty of early threes — and shooting a good percentage on them — the Sixers were able to limit the prolific Celtics offense by forcing chaos and creating turnovers. In all, the Celtics committed six turnovers in the opening frame, while the Sixers only turned the ball over one time. Behind 12 points, four assists, a rebound, two steals and a block from Maxey, the Sixers carried a 30-25 lead into the second quarter.
Embiid and George, who checked out at the 1:45 mark of the first quarter, did not need to return to the floor until about midway through the second quarter. Remarkably, the Sixers outscored the Celtics by nine points in roughly seven minutes without their two highest-paid players on the floor. Maxey's leadership was paramount, but Yabusele and Caleb Martin were each critical as well.
Caleb Martin — whose legacy as a Celtics Killer is well-documented — continues to show signs of trending towards being the player the Sixers hoped to have when they inked the battle-tested wing to a four-year contract. After shooting 3-of-4 from three-point range on Monday night in what Nurse called his best game of the season, the Sixer who causes as much fear in Celtics fans as anybody knocked down both of his long-range tries in the first half. Additionally, he caught the struggling Jaylen Brown sleeping on the glass and converted a tough putback bucket:
Caleb outta nowhere. 😳 pic.twitter.com/JVnX6j8aan
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
When Caleb Martin is at his best, he punishes any player who forgets to box out by swooping in for the ball. Him doing that on Wednesday was yet another signal that he is getting closer to recovering from a litany of injuries which have plagued him for much of the season.
Embiid comes up large to prevent Celtics run before halftime
The most terrifying aspect of facing off against Boston is that a team can play 20 minutes of brilliant two-way basketball and then watch their entire lead evaporate in the final four minutes of a half. And when Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum got going from beyond the arc and knocked down back-to-back threes, that exact situation almost felt inevitable.
Tatum's third three-pointer of the game trimmed the Sixers' lead down to five points, but Boston likely would have been ahead if Embiid had not found a solid groove of his own as a scorer.
a PG dime into a JE triple. beautiful.
V⭐️TE SIXERS: https://t.co/MkbjLhykqa
ps: your vote counts 3x today! pic.twitter.com/ykjxoara2c— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
With the way the Sixers had played all half, a five-point lead at intermission would have felt like a bit of a gut punch — particularly with the momentum (if you believe such a thing exists) fully behind a Boston team playing in front of its home crowd. So when Embiid nailed his third top-of-the-key triple of the night in the final seconds of the half, it allowed the Sixers to breathe a sigh of relief:
3MBIID gets his third triple of the day! pic.twitter.com/gLbq0Lw0uW
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
Embiid finished the first half with 18 points and six rebounds on 7-of-11 shooting from the field and 3-of-4 shooting from beyond the arc. Maxey also had 18 points to go with eight assists on 7-of-13 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting from three-point range. Yabusele (10 points) was the other Sixer in double-figures at intermission, as the team held a 66-58 lead at halftime. According to ESPN, this was the team's highest-scoring first half of the season — a culmination of many months of wondering what the Sixers could look like at their best.
Celtics land a heavy punch to open second half, tie game entering fourth quarter
In the first two minutes and 20 seconds of the third quarter, the Celtics staged a 7-0 run, cutting the Sixers' lead to just one point and forcing Nurse to call a timeout and regroup with his team. Brown scored four points before Tatum cashed yet another three, and it once again highlighted how slim any team's margin for error is against a Celtics group which is nearly a lock to have a signifiant advantage in three-pointers made.
Embiid knocked down another timely triple out of the timeout, but Horford responded with one of his own from the corner. Embiid drew a foul on Horford in the mid-post and converted a pair of
One development which helped the Sixers, though: Porziņģis was in the locker room at the start of the second half, and the Celtics went on to say he was doubtful to return due to an ankle sprain. Not only did Porziņģis' absence give Boston less offensive firepower and spacing, but it enabled Embiid to retreat towards the rim where he is at his most comfortable defensively. Luke Kornet replaced Porziņģis for Boston.
But the Sixers were unable to find any offensive rhythm, and that combined with an eruption from Brown enabled the Celtics to take their first lead since the opening minutes of the game. The Sixers only managed to put 10 points on the board in the first nine-plus minutes of the third quarter, making only two of their 13 field goal attempts during that span.
George's continued struggles as a shooter loomed large during this stretch. George's production as a passer, rebounder and defender has remained steady for much of the year, but his scoring output has lagged far behind what the Sixers expect of George — and surely what George expects of himself.
Trailing by two points with 3:37 left in the third quarter, Nurse needed to give Maxey and Embiid a spell. The Sixers went to a five-man unit of Lowry, Jackson, Oubre, George and Yabusele in which the nine-time All-Star needed to shoulder much of the offensive load for his team. During three minutes as the lone star, George took two shots and missed them both. But the Sixers were able to knot things up again before the end of the quarter thanks to another Yabusele basket and the first points of the game for Lowry.
Nurse goes small to begin final frame, and Maxey leads the way
With the game tied at the start of the fourth quarter, Nurse went back to the aforementioned miniature unit of Maxey, Lowry, Jackson, Caleb Martin and Yabusele in a risky gamble as he looked to buy Embiid a few more crucial moments of rest (at the start of the fourth quarter, Maxey and George had already logged 29 minutes, while Embiid had played 26 minutes and Oubre was up to 31).
The Celtics scored the first two points of the fourth quarter, but then Caleb Martin came through again with his fourth triple of the night:
14 points for @Calebmartin14! pic.twitter.com/4uYjSHg85y
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
And after Jackson added two points of his own after nabbing an offensive rebound, Maxey forced a Boston timeout with another step-back triple:
🎶 to the left…take it back now y'all….one hop this time! 🎶 pic.twitter.com/rswndngWOq
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 25, 2024
After the timeout, Maxey scored back-to-back baskets inside the arc — first a step-back jumper, then a driving floater:
he’s DIFFERENT. 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/j717UGX9O1
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 26, 2024
Then, Maxey leveraged the attention he draws from the defense to set up a Lowry triple for his 11th assist of the game:
KLOW KA-CHING. 💰 pic.twitter.com/1q36HZtPHr
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 26, 2024
Maxey continues to perform in high-leverage situations, and after a difficult start to his fifth NBA campaign, the reigning Most Improved Player once again looks like the game-changing player the Sixers know him to be.
Suddenly, Caleb Martin banked in a wing triple and then knocked down another one from the same spot — his sixth triple of the night, giving his team a 15-point lead and forcing another Celtics timeout:
season-high in both points (20) and threes (6) for @Calebmartin14! 👨🍳 pic.twitter.com/N2akAkqX7u
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 26, 2024
Caleb Martin's reputation as a tormentor of the Boston Celtics only grew as he posted his best outing of the year after a hellish start to his first season with the Sixers.
Sixers escape, cementing win of the season in Boston
But once again, the Celtics are capable of flipping a game on its head in a moment's notice, and they did just that. In the snap of a finger, Boston had made an 11-0 push— aided by back-to-back brutal turnovers from Maxey — to make it a three-point game with two minutes and 25 seconds remaining. The TD Garden crowd was going ballistic, and the Sixers appeared on the verge of suffering one of their greatest collapses in recent memory — not a small feat in itself.
After Nurse called his second straight timeout, Embiid made a pair of free throws and the Sixers locked in on the defensive end. Then, Maxey scored a brilliant end-of-shot-clock bucket out of an inbound play:
TYRESE MAXEY. pic.twitter.com/xekbPjFk2B
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) December 26, 2024
A late Embiid turnover made things a bit tricky down the stretch, but the Sixers had already done enough to earn a victory. George sealed the gam with a pair of free throws, and behind Maxey's 33 points and 12 assists, the Sixers improved to 11-17 in the most impressive of ways.
Up next: The Sixers will head out to the West Coast for four games, with the first coming on Saturday night against the Utah Jazz.
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