The Philadelphia 76ers shocked a lot of people, most notably the Celtics, with their resounding 115-103 win over the Celtics in game five of their second round NBA playoff series. The Sixers now lead 3-2 and have a chance to close out the Celtics at home in game 6 on Thursday. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. EDT at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
The Boston Celtics came into the pivotal game 5 of this series and came out flat. Meanwhile, the Sixers came in with the eye of the Tiger and jumped out to a big lead that they never looked back from. The Celtics just played badly from the jump, shooting just 39.8% from the floor and getting out rebounded 49-36. Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 36 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists, but he was just 11 for 27 from the floor.
I'm upset but I'll try tweeting this to existence. #Celtics pic.twitter.com/rGRqwlwtPY
— GreenRunsDeep (@CelticsGRD) May 10, 2023
Jaylen Brown added 24 points on 9 of 16 shooting. He also had 6 rebounds. But they got no help from anyone else. Marcus Smart was the only other Celtic in double figures with 14 points. Al Horford was terrible with 0 points in 25 minutes while Derrick White, who has been a ghost all series, did next to nothing with 7 points in 33 minutes. “We dropped the ball tonight,” Celtics guard Jaylen Brown said, reported ESPN. “Couldn't stay in front of anybody. Couldn't get a stop when we needed to. Missed a lot of wide-open shots, gave everything up that they wanted us to give up. That was the story of the game. But got to have a short-term memory.”