PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers earned a tough and gritty 102-100 win over the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night to improve to 7-4 on the season. They saw a double digit lead turn into a deficit in the second half as it appeared the Sixers were going to take a tough loss, but instead, they dug deep and rallied to earn the win.
Tyrese Maxey had 21 points, nine assists, and five rebounds for Philadelphia while Andre Drummond had 14 points and 13 rebounds, Kelly Oubre Jr. added 12 and seven rebounds, and Justin Edwards had 22 huge points off the bench. Trendon Watford added seven points and Quentin Grimes had 18 and six rebounds.
Here are the three biggest takeaways for the Sixers following the win:
Third quarter issues continue to be a thing
The Sixers once again went through another rough patch in the third. They led by 10 entering the second half, but the Celtics put on a clinic and outscored Philadelphia 36-20 in the third as the Sixers continue to struggle in this part of the game. Bad third quarters have cost them games thus far this season and it’s something that has to be nipped in the bud as they move forward despite picking up the win. One has to wonder what the problem really is.
“I’m gonna say it, I’d rather be a better fourth-quarter team than a third-quarter team because our fourth quarters are pretty damn good,” coach Nick Nurse laughed. “But I’ll keep working on it. We’ll keep working on it. We did think about changing the lineup. I think just switching something in the lineup is something I’ve used in the past. I went for a long, almost second half of a whole season starting one group and starting another group in the second half because we kinda had this similar thing. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just do halftime down on the bench instead of coming up to the locker room. That’s something else we can try. I don’t know.”
Edwards staying ready
One has to give Edwards a ton of credit for his performance on Tuesday. The Sixers needed somebody to produce from the perimeter and Edwards answered the call. He was fantastic off the bench for Philadelphia and one has to be impressed with him being able to stay ready and confident on a night the Sixers needed his production. He has been in and out of coach Nick Nurse’s rotation and he stepped up when it mattered most out on the floor. One has to give him a lot of credit for stepping him against the Celtics.
“He played pretty solid in his first rotation in the first half,” said Nurse. “They were fairly small-ish. We used (Jabari) Walker a little bit there on (Jaylen) Brown in the first half. I thought it bought some good minutes. We tried to buy a couple more minutes with him there. They were just doing a pretty good job of screening all of our primary defenders off and getting him the ball. Just again, went back to Justin as part of the rotation really. Obviously, when you get going, we just keep you going. He hit some big ones. Got us back in the game. That’s for sure.”
Oubre comes up large
Once again, Oubre did yeoman’s work on the floor for Philadelphia. Anytime the Sixers needed somebody to step up and give a big boost on either end of the floor, Oubre provided it. He provided a lot of defensive work on Celtics star Brown and he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He certainly was when he rebounded the only Edwards miss of the night to put it back up and in to give the Sixers the lead for good down the stretch. He continues to give the Sixers production on either end and is supremely important to this group.
Nurse said of Oubre:
“Obviously, he didn’t play much in the first half because of foul trouble. Again, he’s kinda I would say in the guts of that game, he got Brown. We were in a stretch–we were doing a really good job on him in the first half. We were kinda just subbing Kelly with him the whole time to make sure we had a primary guy on him to just lock in on him and then he got in foul trouble so we got away from that just a bit. Then, again, he was out there primarily to guard him and he did a decent job. He works at it. He makes the catches tough. He’s swatting at the ball and Brown’s really good. We had to do a lot of stuff to try and stop him there and we’d counter with something, they’d counter back and hit a deep 3 on us when we would rotate or something to put two on him. So, it was kinda that chess match going on, but I just think Kelly did the work, right? He just accepted the challenge and did the work and did a good job with that.”
This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: 3 biggest takeaways for Sixers following gritty win over Celtics
