It does not get much more impressive than what the Sixers did in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night.

On the road, without their best player, facing a significant talent disparity against an elite team, the Sixers responded to every single Boston push with a stronger one of their own. It was a character win for a team without many of them this season.

VJ Edgecombe was brilliant from wire to wire, the best player on the floor overall. Tyrese Maxey shook off his continued struggles in the first three quarters and was brilliant in the fourth, leading a massive Sixers run that put the game away in emphatic fashion. Paul George, Kelly Oubre Jr., Andre Drummond, Justin Edwards and Quentin Grimes all had hands in a 111-97 Sixers win that nobody saw coming.

Takeaways from the Sixers' most impressive win of the season:

Sixers' brilliant closing effort seals the deal

Once the second half was underway, it became pretty clear that this was going down to the wire. In the recent history of Sixers-Celtics playoff matchups, that has not gone well for the Sixers. But they were the better team for the overwhelming majority of the game – and benefitted from an ice-cold three-point shooting night from Boston. They spent a ton of time in the driver's seat.

And after all that, with six minutes and 25 seconds left on the clock, the Sixers' lead was down to two points, with a raucous Boston crowd making its presence heard.

Maxey, who predictably struggled for much of the night playing at less than 100 percent, had a similar run to his takeover late in the Sixers' Play-In Tournament victory last week. He knocked down back-to-back threes, giving the Sixers significant breathing room, forcing a Boston timeout. 

Out of the timeout, Edgecombe – the best player on the floor in his second playoff game – read a Boston set perfectly and beat the ball to the spot for a steal. Drummond tipped in a Maxey miss, Maxey drew an offensive foul and assisted an Oubre Jr. triple, Boston called timeout again, Edgecombe hit another three and Maxey completed a dazzling and-one reverse layup.

The Sixers, who for most of the year experienced agonizing end-of-game situations – for better or worse – went on a 17-3 run, soundly extinguishing a championship team in a remarkable effort. Once the Celtics had pulled their starters, Maxey buried a nasty step-back triple for good measure. His teammates were elated.

VJ Edgecombe does his best to help Sixers solve a math problem

The Sixers are not just trying to win in spite of a significant talent disadvantage and a discrepancy in coaching. They are staring down an inescapable mathematical equation that suggests they cannot hang with the Celtics all that much.

Boston has become well known for its emphasis on three-point shooting volume; the Celtics' team three-point percentage is never as good as the shooting talent on the team would lead one to believe, but they extract more value from long-distance shots than almost anybody else because they have optimized their shot profile.

For the Joel Embiid-less Sixers – with an ailing Maxey, whose finger injury has severely limited his three-point shooting volume and accuracy – it is difficult to come up with a plan to generate enough quality looks at three-point tries to keep up with Boston's frequent barrages of triples. Maxey is already limited, and the Sixers play several players the Celtics are comfortable leaving open, from Oubre Jr. to Adem Bona, Dominick Barlow and Drummond. Even Edgecombe, whose long-range stroke exceeded expectations in his first NBA season, can occasionally be left open.

After a horrid shooting performance in Game 1, the Sixers missed their first six long-range tries on Tuesday. It looked like more of the same was coming. Then came an avalanche, but this time it was from the Sixers. They made 10 of their final 13 three-point tries to close out the half, turning a 13-point deficit into an eight-point lead in the final 15:15 seconds of the half.

Boston only made six of its 22 three-point attempts prior to intermission; there were some open misses mixed in there but the Sixers did a much better job getting out to contest shooters. Meanwhile, Grimes – who is a vital part of any path to consistent three-point success in this series for the Sixers – made two triples (and blocked one on the other end of the floor). Drummond connected from one corner soon after George had done so from the other.

But the star of the show and the driver of the turnaround was Edgecombe, who had a few regrettable plays early but rebounded – literally and figuratively. Edgecombe's relentless hustle earned the Sixers extra looks, and in a span of five minutes to close the half he knocked down four triples:

Edgecombe, still just 20 years old, scored 20 points on 13 shots in the first half in addition to collecting seven rebounds, two assists and a steal. Of those 20 points, 16 came in the second quarter. According to ESPN, it was the highest-scoring quarter by any rookie in a playoff game since 2020.

This time, Sixers respond to Celtics' early haymaker

The Sixers set a better initial tone on Tuesday than they did on Sunday. Their offense, lifeless from start to finish in Game 1, had some juice early on in Game 2. George connected on two jumpers out of the post in the team's first two possessions. Edgecombe blew by Boston defenders for a rim finish. Maxey knocked down back-to-back 15-footers. The effort and attention to detail looked right.

Maxey's second mid-range bucket gave the Sixers a 13-10 lead at the 7:48 mark of the first quarter. In the blink of an eye, with 3:15 left in the opening frame, the Celtics were ahead, 26-13. In more than four minutes of scoreless offense, the Sixers lost any and all sense of player or ball movement. Just as they were in Game 1, the Sixers' attempts at one-on-one offense were repeatedly stifled by Boston's elite individual defenders.

Boston continued to load up against Maxey, whose difficulties as a jump-shooter make it harder for him to find a counter to all of that attention. Edgecombe took a hard fall on his lower back, forcing the rookie back to the locker room. George and Oubre each picked up two early fouls.

Sixers head coach Nick Nurse called a timeout, and it looked like his team was once again going to crater at the first sign of resistance. Instead, the Sixers landed a punch of their own, a 10-0 run within 90 seconds of the action resuming. Maxey and Grimes knocked down triples, Drummond scored on the offensive glass and Maxey pulled off a pick six:

Regardless of whether or not they were executing effectively, the Sixers' spirit was noticeably better for the entirety of Tuesday's game than it was at any point on Sunday. Game 1's Sixers would have rolled over midway through the first quarter. In Game 2, Nurse's team picked itself up off the mat and dominated the remainder of the half.

The minutes that kept the Sixers in the driver's seat

Sixers fans across the area certainly held their collective breath when Edgecombe went back to the locker room not even two minutes into the second half, but he eventually returned. In his absence, George and Oubre gave the Sixers a necessary scoring jolt to stay in front. Oubre's juice was particularly meaningful given how pronounced his struggles were in the first six quarters of this series.

Boston made inroads, cutting the Sixers' lead from 13 points back down to three. The Celtics forced a shot clock violation, and their fans were going nuts, trying to will their team ahead of the Sixers. The Sixers might not quite have been on the ropes, but their lead certainly was.

Then came a tremendous three minutes and 30 seconds of defense from the Sixers, who responded by immediately forcing a shot clock violation on Boston. Edgecombe was left open after a Celtics miscommunication and buried his fifth triple of the night. Nurse successfully challenged an out-of-bounds call. Edgecombe slithered his way to the basket for two, and responded to a Boston triple by casually drilling a mid-range jumper.

It was an 8-3 closing effort for the Sixers in that third quarter. Ironically for a team which struggled in third quarters all year long, their most important victory of the season to date would not have happened without a mature few minutes of two-way play to end a third quarter.

Odds and ends

Some additional notes:

• Despite some sound logic behind the idea of starting Drummond over Bona, Nurse opted to stick with the youngster Bona as his starting center. Bona did not play well, though his minutes were less harmful than in Game 1. Drummond was better; his immobility was exposed on defense many times but he was impactful on the glass and efficient offensively. Drummond started the second half over Bona, who was on the wrong end of a vicious poster dunk early:

• For the second straight game, Nurse went to Edwards as part of his rotation. Edwards was surprisingly absent from the Sixers' rotation in their Play-In Tournament victory on Wednesday, but returned to the mix in Sunday's Game 1 loss after what was a very strong closing stretch in the regular season. Oubre's early foul trouble meant Edwards' name was called a bit before Barlow. Edwards battled on defense and hit an important three in the fourth quarter; he took Barlow's minutes in the second half.

• Nurse flipped his two most important defensive assignments from Game 1 to Game 2. This time around, George opened the game defending Jayson Tatum, with Oubre guarding Jaylen Brown. 

• Perhaps predictably, defensive rebounding plagued the Sixers in this one. Perhaps the only reason it was not an issue in Game 1 was that Boston made so many shots. But this time around, the Sixers have trouble ending possessions, particularly when Celtics three-point misses turned into long rebounds.

Up next: This series will now head to Philadelphia, where the Sixers will host the Celtics for Game 3 on Friday night after a pair of days off.