Joel Embiid tossed in 33 points and added eight assists as the visiting Philadelphia 76ers avoided elimination by beating the Boston Celtics 113-97 on Tuesday in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series.
Embiid, who missed the first three games of the series following an appendectomy, went to the locker room with an apparent knee injury with 4:35 to play in the third quarter, but returned to the game with 2:00 left in the third.
“Obviously he was very, very good,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. “Give him credit. He worked really hard to get back through the procedure that he had. Played a lot of minutes. I was super-impressed with him on the defensive end tonight.”
Tyrese Maxey added 25 points and 10 rebounds for the seventh-seeded 76ers, who entered the fourth quarter down one but outscored the Celtics 28-11 over the final 12 minutes. Paul George finished the game with 16 points, nine rebounds and seven assists as Philadelphia cut its deficit in the best-of-seven series to 3-2.
Second-seeded Boston received 24 points and 16 rebounds from Jayson Tatum, and 22 points from Jaylen Brown. Neemias Queta had eight points and 14 rebounds. The Celtics shot 36 of 89 from the field.
“I mean it’s disappointing,” Boston’s Payton Pritchard said. “Every game you lose in the playoffs is disappointing. But the playoffs is life of its own. You never know when you’re gonna get it done, so you gotta move on and get ready for (Game 6 on) Thursday. … We don’t have time to dwell on it. We’ve got to go to Philly tomorrow and get ready for Thursday.”
Boston went in front for the first time on a Brown layup that made it 16-15 with 2:59 left in the first. The Celtics led 23-21 entering the second.
Boston extended its advantage to 42-31 on a Tatum 3-pointer, but the 76ers moved to within two points, 50-48, following a Maxey 3-pointer with 2:10 remaining in the half. Boston scored the next seven points and had a 57-50 halftime lead.
The Celtics stretched their lead to 13 points, 63-50, less than two minutes into the third, but a VJ Edgecombe 3-pointer pulled Philadelphia within one point, 66-65, with 6:37 to play in the quarter. Boston was up 86-85 at the end of three.
Philadelphia took an 88-86 lead on a George 3-pointer early in the fourth, and had its largest lead to that point after Edgecombe knocked down a 3-pointer that made it 109-94 with 2:25 to play.
The Celtics shot 3-for-22 from the floor in the fourth quarter.
“Just missed some shots,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “I thought we got some good looks. Weren’t able to capitalize on them.”
“We were able to execute what we wanted to do defensively — weren’t blowing assignments and guarded hard,” Nurse said of his team’s fourth-quarter performance. “Everybody did a good job of guarding their man. … We knew we needed to do a better job on the defensive end.”
–Field Level Media
