April 18, 2026
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Can Tyrese Maxey lead the Sixers past the Boston Celtics?
Do not get it twisted: the Sixers do not see themselves as underdogs as they prepare for their first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics.
"I don't know. I don't really ever look at things that way," Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said in between the team's practice and flight to Boston on Friday. "...If we play really well and play our backsides off, then we should have a chance to do some stuff."
In the eyes of many, this is the most lopsided Eastern Conference matchup in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs. The Celtics spent two months as arguably the best team in the conference, then got their best player back in early March and have seen him progress at a tremendous rate. The Sixers, meanwhile, will be without their best player for the foreseeable future; there remains no timeline for a Joel Embiid return.
But the Sixers, whose season began with an emphatic win at TD Garden led by two guards who refuse to take no for an answer, still have more than enough talent to compete with anybody on any given night. But do they have enough to keep up with a team of Boston's caliber in a seven-game series? The Sixers saw the Celtics three times in as many weeks to begin the season and only one since.
Ahead of Game 1 on Sunday afternoon, what should Sixers fans know about a Celtics team that has many of the same main characters, but a bit of a different look?
The most important figures from the Celtics' seven-game victory over the Sixers in 2023 remain. Joe Mazzulla has ascended into the conversation for the NBA's best head coach. In Jayson Tatum's absence, Jaylen Brown proved he could be the leading scorer for a contending team; Brown is set to make an All-NBA team this season and could end up with a top-five MVP finish, too.
Tatum is back now, and he has continued to trend upward in every respect. Derrick White has leveled up to a tremendous degree since the Sixers last faced him in a playoff environment; White is arguably the most impactful defensive guard in the entire NBA in addition to becoming a more comfortable on-ball player. White is a full-blown point guard these days.
If there is any nitpicking that can be done on White, the obvious subject is his three-point shooting. He has a lengthy track record as a terrific shooter, but only made 32.7 percent of his long-range attempts this season. Defenses still treat him like a major threat from the perimeter. But in a series the Sixers will need to have three-point shooting luck on their side, it is at least somewhat encouraging.
For much of the season, White and Payton Pritchard made up one of the league's best backcourts, and after the trade deadline Pritchard moved to the bench, where he has been among the league's best reserves as a nuclear three-point shooter, making continued jumps as a scorer and defender. He is Boston's fourth-best player by far, even if he is coming off the bench.
But, like the Orlando Magic team the Sixers dispatched in the Play-In Tournament on Wednesday, the Celtics are built around their two star wings. Tatum's case is unusual given his injury history; that will be touched on shortly. Brown has not necessarily changed much about his methods of attack this season – he remains a similar player to what the Sixers have seen and largely failed to stop for years – but he has leaned into his mid-range work more and seen his usage go way up without Tatum. Brown might be most productive as an individual without Tatum, but the Celtics are at their best when both of their wings are playing.
Paul George, who did not play in any of the four regular-season matchups between the two teams, looms large as the Sixers' best wing defender. After George and Kelly Oubre Jr. did tremendous work to limit Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner on Wednesday, they will face a much more significant challenge in handling Brown and Tatum.
"The difference is," George said, "they've won. Those two guys have won. JB and JT, they've won and they're mature, they're experienced, they've been together for a while. But same thing goes. We've got to make it tough, we've got to challenge them. It's the same mindset for me and Kelly. If we've got a shot to beat them, we've got to make it as tough as possible for those two guys."
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The short answer: a whole lot better than anyone would have anticipated for a player with only 16 games under his belt since tearing his Achilles not even one year ago.
Tatum's return has been a tremendous success for Boston, elevating the Celtics' floor and ceiling. Predictably, one of the most portable stars in recent NBA history has been purely additive to what the Celtics had developed in his absence to obliterate expectations. Tatum is very good at every aspect of basketball; no matter what role Mazzulla asked him to fill he was probably going to excel in it.
As it turns out, Tatum has ramped up in terms of role, usage and minutes a lot faster than expected. He has already topped out at 40 minutes in a game, which indicates the Celtics will have no restrictions of any kind with him in the playoffs. He averaged 10.0 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game, he has held up just fine defensively and has not halted Brown's momentum in any capacity.
In a small sample, Tatum's offensive efficiency is the only aspect of his prior brilliance that has not yet returned. He shot 41.1 percent from the field and 32.9 percent from beyond the arc. His first step was clearly not the same when he made his season debut, but Tatum has gotten more explosive as time has gone on. Tatum's shot diet in his 16 games in 2025-26 was incredibly similar to how it looked last season.
A slow start as a shooter did irreparable damage to Tatum's efficiency marks, but he showed late in the season that he was rounding into form. He scored 32 points on 12-for-23 shooting from the field in a March 29 road win over the Charlotte Hornets. That kickstarted a six-game stretch to close the season in which he shot 45.5 percent from the field and 37.0 percent on three-point tries while logging 35.3 minutes per game.
"Certainly played against him a lot in the past and he's a great player," Nurse said. "You have to look really hard to scheme for him. The things that he can do, especially with the perimeter shooting he brings from range, and just the footwork, the skill work, the hits and turnarounds, there's a lot to guard there. We've been through it a lot with him... We've dug pretty deeply on this, on him, and feel like we've got a pretty good game plan going in."
Nurse laughed.
"We'll see."
At the top of the roster and in terms of coaching, this Celtics team is similar to the last one that knocked the Sixers out of a playoff run. But one of Boston's superpowers this season has been its depth, and that looks a lot different than it did a few years ago. Sam Hauser, now a veteran sharpshooter, remains in place as one of the team's critical offensive role players. But there has been a lot of turnover elsewhere.
Starting at center, Neemias Queta – who torched the Sixers to the tune of 27 points and 17 rebounds last month – has become one of the true breakout players in the NBA this season. From a dart throw at the end of the roster to a quality starting center, Queta has done tremendous work to fill Boston's perceived hole inside. He is backed up by former Sixers first-round pick Nikola Vučević, acquired from the Chicago Bulls at the deadline. Vučević broke his finger soon after joining the Celtics and has only played 16 games in green, with middling results.
There is a decent chance that, at some point during this series, Mazzulla will turn from Vučević to the younger Luka Garza, whose exploits in the regular-season finale helped the Sixers gain home-court advantage against Orlando. Garza has turned himself into a reputable three-point shooter; both of Boston's backup centers present potential matchup issues for Andre Drummond, given his lack of mobility.
Another ascending Celtics youngster is Baylor Scheierman, a second-year swingman suddenly trusted wholeheartedly on both ends of the floor. He spent a prolonged stretch of the final regular-season game between these teams defending Tyrese Maxey and holding his own. (White, an unquestionably elite defender, has at times struggled against Maxey because he does not have the same quickness.) Scheierman is unafraid of the moment, confidently pulls the trigger on three-point shots and makes them at an excellent clip.
Part of what makes Boston dangerous: so many pieces can come into play on any given night. Perhaps it will be Jordan Walsh, whose role has diminished later in the season but is a tenacious perimeter defender. Maxey is one of a handful of NBA stars Walsh proved himself by defending at a high level early in the year. Rookie wing Hugo González is as tough and gritty as it gets; Sixers fans who loved to hate Marcus Smart will love to hate González, too.
What is most dangerous: Mazzulla's ability to command buy-in from all of his players and ensure that they are doing what they are best at. From the top of the roster to the end of the bench, this is a well-oiled machine.
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This is the big question that will persist for as long as the Sixers are doing battle without the former NBA MVP. But when this series gets underway, Embiid will not even be two weeks removed from his emergency appendectomy. He remains firmly in the recovery stage, which is a distinctly different phase from rehabilitation.
Could Embiid play near the end of this series if the Sixers win multiple games and force it into being a long one? Perhaps. But it is too early to reasonably speculate. The Sixers, for whatever it is worth, are not devoting much energy to the thought just yet.
"You know what? I'm preparing for Sunday's game, and I know he's not playing in that one," Nurse said. "So that's all – we're just zeroed in on trying to see, can we go in there and get ready to battle and fight and execute as best we can."
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