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The Celtics and Sixers have faced off three times this season and each time Philly has walked away with the win. The 4th and final meeting of the regular season happens Saturday at 8:30 PM and you won’t want to miss it. In fact, you should go buy tickets to see it live.
Get your tickets from our friends at StubHub here.
If seeding depends on tie-breakers, the Sixers already own that advantage. So the Celtics are really playing for pride and overall record at this point. There’s also the matter of confidence. The Celtics haven’t been able to solve the Sixers yet. It would be nice if they could go into the postseason knowing that they accomplished the feat at least once.
By now you know the drill. Embiid is a force down low and our bigs are just not well equipped to handle his size and skill set (guess what, nobody in the league really is when he’s engaged and focused). Ben Simmons can be pretty pedestrian in the half court set (in particular when Embiid is the focus) but he’s also pretty amazing in the open court.
Oh yeah, and they have old friend Al Horford and a few other guys that are pretty effective (Harris, Richardson, Thybulle). And it seems like each time we play them some random bench guy ends up with a big night (Mike Scott had 15 in the last matchup; Korkmaz had 3 three pointers in another meeting).
Still, the fact remains that the Sixers are going to have to defend the Celtics and while they are a very good defensive team, Boston creates matchup issues on offense as well. A fully healthy rotation of Kemba, Tatum, Brown, and Hayward gives the Celtics a lot of great options and Smart leads a strong support group that includes Theis, Kanter, and Grant Williams.
But will it be enough to notch their first victory of the year? Will it matter once the playoffs start and the records are reset to zero? We’ll have to watch and see.
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