Boston still has Philly's number (7)

The Celtics end the 76ers' season with even less mercy than usual.

Jayson Tatum

The Boston Celtics were not invented for the purpose of spreading the plague to basketball teams from Philadelphia. But the 76ers, now that they’re back home and packing their gear, would be advised to shelter in place.

Masks would also be good, although they wouldn’t really protect the identity of the bearded James Harden or the towering Joel Embiid. Neither they nor the rest of the Sixers need to be identified for a while.

The third quarter of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals went viral, in the way it spread through white-jerseyed bodies. The Sixers were outscored 31-10, forced no turnovers, and scored seven fewer points than Jayson Tatum, who, with the rest of the Celtics, came out in no-nonsense, Russell-era uniforms with a simple “Boston” across the green jersey front.

The Sixers missed 18 of 21 shots in that period and watched Tatum drain four of five 3-pointers. That was the on-ramp to Boston’s 112-88 victory, the 10th Game 7 loss on the resume of 76ers’ coach Doc Rivers, who might be packing up his own office by the time you read this.

There is much to recommend about a coach who has even gotten to that many Game 7s, of course, and Rivers did win the 2008 NBA title with the Celtics. But if Mike Budenholzer, Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel and Monty Williams can get fired, so can Rivers, especially when he tried to slap a happy mask on this swandive. 

He said the blowout loss did not “diminish” what the Sixers did in the regular season, whatever that was, and said that “tonight, we took a step backwards, but that’s OK, that happens.” The fact that it often happens to this particular team and coach is not OK in any way, shape or form in the City of Brotherly Boo.

Tatum went through the Sixers like an evil variant, breaking Stephen Curry’s two-week-old record for points in a Game 7, with 51. He did not have a turnover, shot 17-for-28 and had 13 rebounds. Jaylen Brown, who does wear a mask oncourt, added 25 points. The rest of them played defense and, in Marcus Smart’s words, ate popcorn and enjoyed the show.

No opponent could have lanced Philadelphia’s boil more painfully than Tatum. He was available there in the 2017 draft, after one season at Duke. The Sixers had the third pick, but swapped for Boston’s first pick and took Markelle Fultz, a point guard from Washington. With the Lakers committed to choosing Lonzo Ball at No. 2, lest their fans bring pitchforks to the doors of Staples Center, Tatum was a low-hanging Hall of Famer, sitting there for Boston.

Fultz was hurt and ineffective and was eventually banished to Orlando. The Sixers could have picked him at No. 3. Rivers had nothing to do with that shank. Bryan Colanegelo was the general manager then.

Either Tatum or Curry, depending on what you like, is the best American-born player in the NBA, but Tatum only turned 25 on March 3. This is the fourth Eastern finals appearance for Tatum and Brown in the past six years, and they got to the NBA Finals in 2022, losing to Golden State.

The Celtics and Sixers have both done their teardowns, but Boston only had one year of suffering, winning 25 games in 2014 after Rivers left to coach the Clippers. The Sixers won only  75 games in a four-year construction boondoggle, beginning in 2013. They did get Embiid, but also picked Ben Simmons first-overall and watched him devolve, and drafted Mikal Bridges only to send him to Phoenix for Zhaire Smith, who never surfaced meaningfully. Bridges is one of the NBA’s best young players, and is showing it in Brooklyn.

In doing all this, the Sixers made hopeful promises that their fans and the allegedly-tough local media were all too willing to buy. That is why nobody in town wants to hear about this particular loss being “OK.”

Two different Philadelphia franchises have lost a lifetime of seasons at the hands of the Celtics. 

Before the Warriors moved to San Francisco and then Oakland, they were in Philly. In 1958, 1960 and 1962 they lost playoff series to the dynastic Celtics in five, six and seven games.

The Syracuse Nationals, who also had tortured the Warriors, then replaced them in Philadelphia and became the Sixers. Thirteen times, before Sunday, the Sixers and Celtics played knockout. The Celtics won 10 of those, and were 4-1 in Game 7s.

It’s true that Boston had the same hex on the Cincinnati Royals, who had Oscar Robertson, and over the Lakers, who had Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. The Sixers had Wilt Chamberlain and then Julius Erving. In 1967 they were one of the supreme teams in NBA history, winning 68 games, and pulverizing Boston in five. That was one of the many times the Celtics were cast into the dustbin of history. But they shattered Sixer hearts in 1968 with a 7-game win,  and in 1981 they were down 3-1 and won an Eastern final, snipping the Sixers, 91-90, in a Game 7 that featured 35 Boston free throw attempts to Philadelphia’s 15, and only two 3-point attempts throughout.

It is said that a rivalry can’t be a rivalry if the same team always wins, but the Coyote kept dusting himself off and chasing the Roadrunner, and the Sixers resumed their pursuit of the Celtics in 1982. Those were red-circle nights in both cities. Celtic visits were about the only basketball event that could fill Philly’s Spectrum, and a Sixer rally would build a wall of noise that would deafen everything but the unmistakable rasp of PA announcer Dave Zinkoff: “Boston calls tiiiiiime!”

Dave Zinkoff

(Zink was distinctive in many other respects, particularly when the Buffalo Braves would get a basket from Garfield Heard. He would yell, “Heard! Of Buffalo,” and even Heard would laugh. Later, Boston’s Cedric Maxwell would stand outside the huddle in pregame and pantomime Zink’s introductions word for word, including “A word about smoking: Nooooooo.”)

The 1982 Eastern finals threatened to turn into Deja Nooooo for the Sixers. Again they led 3-1. Again Boston won Game 5 at home and twisted the knife to win Game 6 in the Spectrum. Another Sunday afternoon in the sweaty old Garden, and Boston columnists were actually sympathizing with the Sixer players, who surely would be too ashamed to appear in public again.

A couple of hours before tipoff, former Sixer guard turned broadcaster Doug Collins sat high in a Garden seat. He glumly pointed to a corner of the court. “The only thing that can save us today is if Earl Strom comes out of that corner,” he said. Strom was a legendary official who was suspected of siding with the visitor, basically because he liked to antagonize fans.

Earl Strom

Sure enough Strom did make an appearance, and the Sixers stunned Boston, 120-108, as the oblivious Andrew Toney poured in 34 points. At the end of that game, the Celtics fans choked down their bitterness and began chanting, “Beat L.A.,” because the Sixers would play (and lose to) the Lakers in the Finals. That call to arms persists in ballparks and arenas today, throughout America.

In 1983 the Sixers won the NBA title, having imported Moses Malone. They did not have to deal with Boston because Milwaukee already had. But Philly was eliminated by the Green in ‘02, ‘12, ‘18 and ‘20, with Paul Pierce rampaging for 46 in Game 5 of a 5-game series in ‘02.

Boston has won three NBA titles since Game 7 of 1982. Philadelphia has won none since 1983.

It’s a different Garden and a different game, and it’s the sons and grandsons of Celtic season ticket holders who celebrate now. But Sunday showed how history can belabor a point. The Sixers, and Rivers, did indeed take a backward step, right into a rotting pile of yesterdays.