Sixers push Celtics to Game 7

Philadelphia just dragged Boston into the hardest possible version of this series — a Game 7 in TD Garden on Saturday, May 2. The Sixers beat the Celtics 106-93 in Game 6 on Friday night, tying the first-round matchup 3-3 after looking dead a week ago. Philly was down 3-1 after Game 4. Now the No. 2 seed has to survive one more night against a No. 7 seed that suddenly looks very real. ### How did the Sixers force this? They did it by winning the middle of the game and flattening Boston’s offense. Philadelphia outscored Boston 38-26 in the second quarter and 24-14 in the third, which turned a close game into a double-digit Sixers lead before the fourth even started. Boston finished the night shooting 12-for-41 from 3 and just 9-for-16 from the line — not catastrophic in isolation, but brutal when the rest of the offense is already stuck in mud. ### Who carried Philadelphia? Tyrese Maxey was the headline scorer with 30 points in 40 minutes, and Paul George gave Philadelphia the two-way game it needed with 23 points, five made 3s, four rebounds, three assists, and two steals. Joel Embiid didn’t have to post a monster scoring total to control the game — he finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists, which is basically the “everything is under control” line for him. ### What went wrong for Boston? The 3-point math failed them. Boston took 41 threes and made 12. That’s 29%. The Celtics also got only 18 points from Jaylen Brown and 17 from Jayson Tatum, and neither star bent the game enough in the second half to stop Philadelphia’s run. When Boston’s offense is built around spacing and volume shooting, a cold night doesn’t just lower the score — it shrinks the whole floor. ### Why is this such a big swing? Because this series looked close to over. Boston won Game 4 by 32 points, then took Game 5 by 16 and moved ahead 3-1 in the series. That usually means the favorite is about to close the door. Instead, Philadelphia won back-to-back elimination games — 113-97 in Game 5 and 106-93 in Game 6 — and flipped the pressure completely. Now the Celtics are the team answering questions. ### So what matters in Game 7? Shot quality, obviously, but also composure. Game 7s tend to get ugly fast — possessions slow down, role players tighten up, and every bad quarter feels twice as big. Boston still has home court and the better regular-season record at 56-26. Philadelphia came in as the 7 seed at 45-37. But that gap matters less now because the series has already shown Boston can’t reliably separate from this matchup. ### When is the decider? Game 7 is set for Saturday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. ET in Boston. The winner moves on to the Eastern Conference semifinals. The loser gets remembered for blowing either a 3-1 lead or a giant upset chance — and that’s why this got so tense, so fast. ### Bottom line This is no longer a story about Boston being better on paper. It’s a one-game test now. Philadelphia earned that by defending, surviving, and getting star-level shotmaking from Maxey and George at exactly the right time.