BOSTON — Jaylen Brown scored 25 factors and the Boston Celtics rolled previous the Philadelphia 76ers 121-87 on Wednesday evening, spoiling the return of reigning league MVP Joel Embiid.
The Celtics tied the sequence at one sport apiece because the Japanese Convention semifinals sequence shifts to Philadelphia for Recreation 3 on Friday.
Malcolm Brogdon added 23 factors, connecting on six of Boston’s 20 3-pointers. Derrick White and Marcus Good added 15 factors apiece. Jayson Tatum performed many of the sport in foul hassle and was held to seven factors.
Boston ratcheted up its protection and restricted a 76ers group that hit 17 3-pointers in its Recreation 1 win to simply 6 of 30 from past the arc on Wednesday. The Celtics led by as many as 36 factors within the fourth quarter.
Tobias Harris led the 76ers with 16 factors. Embiid completed with 15 factors, three rebounds and 5 blocks in his first sport again from a sprained proper knee that brought about him to overlook the ultimate sport of the 76ers’ first-round sweep of Brooklyn. He additionally sat out Philadelphia’s Recreation 1 win on Monday.
Embiid’s return got here a day after being voted MVP for the primary time.
He was cleared to play by medical doctors and coaching workers following a pregame, on-court exercise. That was after he did some mild work in the course of the 76ers’ morning shootaround.
Tatum picked up three fouls within the first half. He was referred to as for his fourth on the 7:34 mark of the third quarter when he knocked Harden to the ground whereas attempting to combat by means of a display screen.
It pressured him to play rather less aggressively and helped Philadelphia reduce what had been an 18-point Boston result in 73-60 with simply over 4 minutes to play within the third quarter.
However Tatum’s teammates picked up the slack, main the best way because the Celtics closed the quarter on a 19-5 run to get it again as much as 92-65 getting into the fourth.
Embiid began slowly offensively, however with the 76ers struggling to make photographs from the surface, he made an virtually rapid impression defensively.
First, he blocked an early shot by Good after which pressured White to regulate one other try. Embiid had 5 blocks his first 13 minutes of motion.
However his conditioning was noticeably missing as he lumbered into units at instances. He performed simply shy of seven minutes within the first quarter earlier than getting his first relaxation. He returned for the ultimate 1:05 of the interval.
Embiid knocked down his first area objective of the evening. a jumper over Grant Williams, with 21.4 seconds
