December 25th, 2018 gave us on of the best regular season moments in the Celtics-Sixers rivalry.
The Celtics have played a lot of memorable games against the Philadelphia 76ers during the era of The Process.
We all remember Jayson Tatum’s 51-point Game 7 in Round 2 of the 2023 playoffs.
We also remember the Celtics sweeping the 76ers in the bubble and the 2018 playoffs when the Celtics took Philly out in 5 games. There have been some classic regular season games as well.
On February 15th, 2022, the Celtics blew the doors off of Philadelphia, 135-87 behind 29 points from Jaylen Brown and 28 points from Jayson Tatum. There was the Jayson Tatum game winner on February 25th, 2023, that was nearly upstaged by a Joel Embiid buzzer beating tying shot. However, it did not count.
However, maybe the most memorial game these two teams have played recently had to be on December 25th, 2018. It was the first time these two teams played since Philly acquired Jimmy Butler in a trade with the Timberwolves.
Of course, this was a playoff rematch but these teams had played on Opening Night where Boston blew the doors off of Philadelphia 105-87 behind 23 points and 9 rebounds by Jayson Tatum.
The 22-12 76ers came to Boston to take on the 19-13 Celtics, who were wearing their green ‘Earned Edition’ jerseys which the team got because they made the playoffs the previous season. The Celtics starting 5 included Kyrie Irving, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Marcus Morris, and Al Horford.
This was a monster Joel Embiid game, scoring 34 points, grabbing 16 rebounds and blocking 2 shots. It was a great duel between Embiid and Horford, as well. Joel scored 16 points shooting 6/13 from the field and 2/4 from 3 when being guarded by Horford in the game.
It felt like on a lot of plays Embiid got the better of Horford.
On his first hoop of the game, Embiid posted up Horford and got to the block with ease finishing with a hook shot.
This is great defense by Al. He uses his body well to mess with Embiid’s dribble. He also does a great job once Embiid re-gathers himself and doesn’t allow Embiid to back him down. However, Embiid makes a great play, pivoting around Al and getting to the cup for the deuce.
Al got the better of Joel on a few plays as well.
Philly fakes a dribble hand up with Embiid and Butler and Embiid isolates. Horford does a very good job at not letting him muscle his way to the basket and force a tough shot which he gets a good contest on, forcing the miss.
This was a big play late in the game, Embiid pump fakes the first attempt, in which Horford did a very good job of recovering and once he pump fakes, Al is in good position. Embiid tries to shake Horford and when he can’t he puts off a tough 3 with a really good contest. Even when Wilson Chandler (that is a throwback name who I forgot was in this game) gets the offensive rebound, Tatum has an awesome block to save the possession.
While the Embiid-Horford matchup was fun, the story of the game was Kyrie because this night belonged to him.
With 40 points and 10 rebounds on 17/33 from the field and 5/10 from 3, Kyrie Irving had maybe his best game as a Celtic in this one. His 23 first half points allowed for the Celtics to build a lead.
As the great Hubie Brown said, “easy, just effortless.”
It was a good start for Irving but he really took over this game at the end of the 4th quarter and overtime. His last 4 buckets were all in big-time moments and were displays of elite shot making.
The way he creates space by lulling Butler into stopping before blasting towards the hoop and finishing with a very nice lay is so good.
This is just incredible shot making by a great player. Butler plays awesome isolation defense and forces Kyrie, who had clearly decided that he was taking this shot no matter what, into a tough fall away jumper and while it did hit the front of the rim, Irving got the shooters touch to tie the game.
Kyrie gets the ball in the dribble handoff and does what he does best. That pull-up was so incredible to watch over those 2 seasons he was a Celtic and this shot was another example of his shot making abilities. Nothing but net.
The crowd reaction tells you everything. First a tip of the cap on that great rebound by Tatum but this is about Irving’s shot. Up 1 with a minute and a half to go and he had the stones to pull up from 30 feet and to drain it the way he did is what makes this so good.
He sees Butler is back tracking and knows he can make that shot so he takes it. And he buries it. You have to be so cold to pull that off and (while I hate to admit it) Kyrie has always been that guy… unlike someone else in this game.
This was an incredible game and maybe the basketball gods will bless us with another Celtics-Sixers classic, though I wouldn’t mind a blowout Celtics win.