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\t\t\tBoston’s Jayson Tatum, left, tries to get past Philadelphia’s Paul George during the first half of Game 6 of their first-round series on Thursday in Philadelphia. (Matt Slocum\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston’s Jayson Tatum, left, tries to get past Philadelphia’s Paul George during the first half of Game 6 of their first-round series on Thursday in Philadelphia. (Matt Slocum\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n
BOSTON \u2014 The Celtics appeared to be skipping toward the second round of the NBA playoffs following a 32-point road win in Game 4 at Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
But Boston has suffered back-to-back losses to the 76ers and a team that once looked like a favorite to emerge from the Eastern Conference is on the brink of an epic collapse.<\/p>\n
If the Celtics loses Game 7 on Saturday it would be their earliest exit from the playoffs since the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t have that star Jayson Tatum is dealing with a new ailment after he briefly left Game 6 in the third quarter for treatment on an apparent left calf injury. Tatum, of course, is just 22 games into his return from the torn right Achilles tendon injury he suffered in last season\u2019s playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Celtics downplayed the situation. Tatum said afterward that his leg was only feeling \u201ca little stiff.\u201d He said following a quick assessment and some time on the exercise bike he didn\u2019t return because the game was out of hand and the starters had already been pulled.<\/p>\n
Coach Joe Mazzulla said there was no injury at all and reiterated that in a conference call Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll play,\u201d Mazzulla said.<\/p>\n
The recent history for winner-takes-all games for Philadelphia teams isn\u2019t exactly on the 76ers side, though. The Flyers are the last Philadelphia team to win a Game 7, beating the Bruins in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n
Since then, the 76ers in 2012, 2019, 2021 and 2023 have all lost Game 7s; the Flyers lost one in 2014 and 2020; and the Phillies lost Game 7 of the NLCS in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Phillies also lost a decisive Game 5 in the 2011 playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Celtics have long had the Sixers\u2019 number in the playoffs, winning the last six series. The 76ers last eliminated the Celtics in the 1982 Eastern Conference semis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been playing these guys for so long,\u201d 76ers star Joel Embiid said. \u201cI\u2019m tired of losing to them. We have a chance to accomplish something special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston’s Jayson Tatum, left, tries to get past Philadelphia’s Paul George during the first half of Game 6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-618117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}