On Sunday afternoon, the Boston Celtics defeated the 76ers 110-106 to complete the sweep and advance to the next round where they will face the Toronto Raptors. It was almost the same story in game 4 as it was in the previous 3 games. The 76ers started out hot, but finished the game poorly. Joel Embiid had yet another 30 point game, but completely fell off in the second half, which was kind of a theme for this entire series. He was a team worst -53 in the series. Tobias Harris had his best offensive game of the series, but unfortunately he took a hard fall in the 3rd quarter. Thankfully he returned in the 4th, but the job was already done. Their bench was not that productive. They scored 16 points, Alec Burks had 13 of them, on 7-21 shooting. The Sixers also had 3 technical fouls in the game. The 76ers had only 8 turnovers, but they shot 9-34 from 3 (26%).
On the Celtics side of the ball, Kemba Walker finally won his first playoff series and he earned it. Walker had 32 points on 8-15 shooting to go along with 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Jayson Tatum continued his rise to stardom as he finished with 28 points and a playoff career high 15 rebounds. The bench has mainly played really well this series, but were not as sharp on Sunday afternoon. However, when Kanter guarded Embiid, Embiid only scored 7 points on 1-4 shooting in 15 possessions. Daniel Theis recorded a foul within the first 30 seconds of the game and then Stevens gave him a quick hook. Theis may have taken that personally. He finished with 15 points on 6-12 shooting and 2-5 from deep. Marcus Smart was a team high +12 and had 8 points on 3-6 shooting and also had 5 rebounds and 4 assists. The Celtics did give up 15 turnovers.
Today, Brett Brown was officially fired as the head coach of the Sixers and there are expected front office changes as well. It is going to be a long offseason for Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Boston will move on to the Conference Semi-Finals to face off against the reigning NBA champions Toronto Raptors. The series will begin Thursday at 3:30 PCT.
