How the Sixers' Defense Forced Game 6

The Sixers earned another chance to play basketball this season, winning Game 5 in Boston to force an elimination Game 6 in Philadelphia on Thursday. Joel Embiid did the heavy work for Philadelphia, amassing 33 points and eight assists—the highest mark in both categories for either team.

But the Sixers still trailed by one entering the game's deciding quarter.

Then their defense stepped into the spotlight, holding Boston to 3-for-22 shooting in the quarter. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum combined to shoot 0-for-8 from the field. Besides a couple of free throws, the Celtics' only scores were two 3s from Sam Hauser and a bucket at the rim from Neemias Queta. Philadelphia held Boston to just 11 points in the fourth quarter.

Here's how they did it.

The makes

If you couldn't tell from above, there weren't many.

Celtics' made shots 4th quarter Game 5: pic.twitter.com/Vi0jY6OE6k
— Austin Krell’s Film Room (@AKFilmRoom) April 29, 2026

As good as Quentin Grimes was in Game 5, the first Hauser make above—a one-dribble relocation 3 from the corner—was a bad moment for him. He's ball-watching several steps off his man with both Paul George and Joel Embiid tracking Brown at the rim. He has his back turned to his man, a cardinal sin, and follows it with a heavy contest to try to recover. Hauser made him pay.

The second Hauser make came off an inverted split action. He entered the ball into the high post and then flared off the back screen from Queta. Embiid is dropping below the level of the pick and Maxey understandably gets hung up on Queta, so it forces Embiid to step to Hauser. A decent contest, but it's too late.

Boston made its final shot of the game with seven minutes and three seconds remaining courtesy of Queta. It is a shot at the rim, the big man plunging over a mismatch. It's about as high quality a shot as Boston could dream of. But it's not a horrible rotation by the Sixers.

Embiid slides over to confront Brown on the drive, leaving the lane open for the plunge. Grimes has to make the low-man rotation. Unnecessary foul, but mostly everything is done correctly.

As it turns out, the Sixers were just about out of mistakes in Game 5. Everything else was a stop.

Boston's turnovers

Brown kicked off Boston's fourth quarter with an offensive foul. Baylor Scheierman followed with a bad pass. The Celtics' flame seemingly died on Tatum simply losing the ball out of bounds on a drive against Tyrese Maxey:

Celtics turnovers 4th quarter Game 5: pic.twitter.com/fGmoz6QxMt
— Austin Krell’s Film Room (@AKFilmRoom) April 29, 2026

Brown's propensity for using his forearm to displace defenders and create space for step-back jumpers has drawn ire from Sixers fans throughout this series. If Game 3 is evidence, that shove doesn't get penalized if its below the belt. So there are two ways to sell it: Get really low and put your head at risk, or eat up all space between yourself and Brown so that the contact does send you flying. George did the latter, and it worked.

But the consistency with which Philadelphia vacuumed up space between themselves and the ball was the story of the fourth quarter. The Sixers moved their feet very well, pressuring the Celtics from all different angles. The way in which Embiid flashed to the front of the rim on the Scheierman turnover is a great example of that. He deterred the drive as V.J. Edgecombe pursued. With Maxey lurking, Scheierman just picked up the ball in no man's land and threw it away.

That's sometimes the best you can do. Tatum even had Maxey isolated high on the floor late in the fourth quarter and simply lost the ball because the mismatched guard showed body without getting his hands involved and slid his feet so that the Celtics wing had no angle to get around him.

Some luck

Of course, some decisions have to be made when you're dealing with wings of the caliber of Brown and Tatum and supporting shooters in Hauser and Payton Pritchard. The Sixers opted to roam away from the non-spacing Queta and gambled off Derrick White making open 3s. Not a bad decision given that he's shooting 21% from 3 this series on nearly seven attempts per game.

Celtics open misses in 4th quarter Game 5: pic.twitter.com/lVoHu8TPKu
— Austin Krell’s Film Room (@AKFilmRoom) April 29, 2026

Simply put, those gambles paid off. They made Grimes the primary assignment on Tatum and used length to double-team from the corner, funneling the ball to White. The Sixers got lucky that White couldn't can shots.

Physicality rules the fourth

When it came down to it, though, the Sixers' physicality sparked perhaps the best defensive quarter of their season with said season hanging in the balance.

Sixers' physicality on Boston misses 4th quarter Game 5: pic.twitter.com/Hh5egFa0K3
— Austin Krell’s Film Room (@AKFilmRoom) April 29, 2026

As the footage illustrates, phyiscality—defending with your feet and your body, not your hands—completely jammed up Boston's offense in a variety of ways in the fourth quarter. It made the Celtics settle for contested foul-line twos, a shot they don't particularly enjoy. It made them change directions and lose balance as they tried to gather the ball. Philadelphia's will to pursue the ball caused Boston to both rush good looks and expense energy to get open.

The Sixers contested with discipline, refusing to allow Boston to put points on the board with the clock stopped and players resting around the foul line. They also gifted themselves short rotations around the perimeter because everyone trusted their teammates to guard their man. The lack of helping kept everyone in position, and the Sixers were able to get hands up on everything.

And because everyone was in position, there were few advantages on the inside when shots went up. The Sixers were able to shut Celtic positions down with defensive rebounds, giving Boston a run for its money.

Philadelphia will need a similar defensive effort on Thursday. But the pressure is on Boston to close this thing out. Perhaps they will. But the Sixers didn't want to go home. Just like they have all season, they responded after taking a beating in Game 4.

Now they have a chance to apply pressure on their home court.

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