76ers (10-17) at Celtics (22-7) Game #30 12/25/24

[Who]

Philly are a title contender.

I do not care what their record is. I do not care what seed they end up with. Whether they are a 4/5 seed or scrape into the playoffs through the play-in. They are a title contender.

This is the 2nd best team in the East behind Boston.

[scaryjerry]

4 games behind the Cavs
2 games up on the Knicks.

Cs will be trailing the Knicks by sooner than later. Maybe Orlando also

I think the ceiling for this team regular season is the 4 seed.

Something is abnormal with Boston if they drop to the 4-seed. Could be some locker room issues to go with it. Maybe one Jay wants the glory over the other Jay idk what it is.

The Celtics could still hang around with the 2nd seed but should prepare to live life as a 3-seed. Their month of December play has looked substandard for the most part.

Massive projecting my friend.
You really going locker room issues? It?s an absurd stretch.
They?re simply not playing very good, individually or as a team and our best players peak is like top 3 mvp instead of actual mvp.

[Phantom255x]

I love Maxey. Humble kid, elite player and making a lot of strides.

I HATE Embiid. Losing respect for him as the day goes on even besides his load management comments. The guy was jawing at the crowd and then just flops all game. Meanwhile the refs are just letting him and the other Sixers players maul our guys and commit blatant fouls.

Whatever. Embiid's gonna predictably get hurt again and Philly won't go far because of it.

[86MaxwellSmart]

Refs let Philly grab Tatum all game, but called ticky tack Fouls on us...We gave ZERO effort on Defense except for like 3 minutes.

[celticinorlando]

Philly are a title contender.

I do not care what their record is. I do not care what seed they end up with. Whether they are a 4/5 seed or scrape into the playoffs through the play-in. They are a title contender.

This is the 2nd best team in the East behind Boston.

You are crazy. Sixers are bottom half of the East. They aren't better than the Cavs or Knicks and are on par with the Bucks. Title contender is just nuts.

[scaryjerry]

Philly are a title contender.

I do not care what their record is. I do not care what seed they end up with. Whether they are a 4/5 seed or scrape into the playoffs through the play-in. They are a title contender.

This is the 2nd best team in the East behind Boston.

I agree with them being a contender despite the record but I?d still put them behind the Cavs, Knicks and bucks.
I don?t even think they played that great tonight, this was once again more about the Celtics simply not playing up to their potential

[SparzWizard]

C's lack of engagement really killed them tonight. And KP's injury. Otherwise they'd come out with a 20-point lead over the inferior 76ers team.

They don't look like last year's team, who was steamrolling teams. They remind me more of the Marcus Smart-led teams.

[Who]

Philly are a title contender.

I do not care what their record is. I do not care what seed they end up with. Whether they are a 4/5 seed or scrape into the playoffs through the play-in. They are a title contender.

This is the 2nd best team in the East behind Boston.

You are crazy. Sixers are bottom half of the East. They aren't better than the Cavs or Knicks and are on par with the Bucks. Title contender is just nuts.

They haven't been healthy. I couldn't care less what their record is while they are banged up.

It is what they are capable of when they are healthy and they are capable of a higher level of basketball than either Cleveland, New York or Milwaukee are.

[celticinorlando]

These home games with the Pacers need to be wins to get some momentum. Same with the Raptors.

Come Jan. 2 the Celtics are in schedule hell.

[celticinorlando]

Philly are a title contender.

I do not care what their record is. I do not care what seed they end up with. Whether they are a 4/5 seed or scrape into the playoffs through the play-in. They are a title contender.

This is the 2nd best team in the East behind Boston.

You are crazy. Sixers are bottom half of the East. They aren't better than the Cavs or Knicks and are on par with the Bucks. Title contender is just nuts.

They haven't been healthy. I couldn't care less what their record is while they are banged up.

It is what they are capable of when they are healthy and they are capable of a higher level of basketball than either Cleveland, New York or Milwaukee are.

Sixers and Embiid are playoff failures and we haven't even seen Embiid get hurt again like it will happen.

[keevsnick]

Well I thought the effort was generally good, they just made too many mistakes.

Brown: 5 T0's
White: 4 TO's
Tatum: 3 TO's

Thats 12 TO's from your three primary ball handlers, so they lost the turnover battle pretty handily. They also lost the three-throw battle only shooting 13 to the 76er's 19. They were good from three tonight, but Philadelphia kept it pretty close in that department.

So lose the TO battle, lose the FT battle, tie in the three department and that's usually going to be a loss.

[keevsnick]

Putrid effort game. Can't just try to play hard for the final five minutes and win games when you don't play D and just chuck threes most of the rest of the game.

This team has some serious problems, and if they don't fix them soon they're going to be looking at a dogfight for seeding in an Eastern Conference that they won by 14 games last year.

This is a very strange game to complain about threes. They were 20/49 which is 40.5%. From two they were 23/46, which is 50%. That means the three were a significantly higher value shot tonight. Shooting threes wasn't the issue, TO's and Caleb Martin becoming Ray Allen every time he plays the C's were the issue tonight. 

Its also worth noting the Cs's were down 2 starters tonight with Jrue out and KP only playing 13 minutes. I wouldn't panic too much about this one.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

The Celtics aren?t very good right now. They seem very ?bored with it all,? and as a result, I?m very bored with them. Looks like they?re happy with getting only the 2 or even 3 seed, then ?flipping the switch? once the playoffs roll around.

[jpotter33]

Super interesting +/- tonight that says a lot about the team.

Tatum (+5) and Horford (+22!) were the only positives tonight. The Tatum part isn't that surprising, as this year we're back to being significantly better when Tatum is on the floor and much closer to an average team when he's off the floor.

But the more surprising thing is Horford's major positive impact, as he mirrored Embiid's minutes all night long with Embiid's numbers (-18) reflecting that. Good to know that Al is still a capable defender and counter to Embiid, at least when he's hitting those threes.

[Phantom255x]

I love Maxey. Humble kid, elite player and making a lot of strides.

I HATE Embiid. Losing respect for him as the day goes on even besides his load management comments. The guy was jawing at the crowd and then just flops all game. Meanwhile the refs are just letting him and the other Sixers players maul our guys and commit blatant fouls.

Whatever. Embiid's gonna predictably get hurt again and Philly won't go far because of it.

I agree with @Who's assessment that yes, PHI is a title contender when healthy. I still don't put them ahead of CLE/NY/BOS though and I also don't believe Embiid will remain healthy all year. PHI could be the 4th best in the East, slightly above Orlando since ORL isn't as "battle tested" in playoffs.

Embiid I'm pretty sure is also still doing the "load managing on B2Bs", so they may not be able to win all the games needed to even make it to the Top-4 seed