Winners and Losers from Sixers' Blowout Game 4 Loss vs. Celtics

At 7 p.m. ET Sunday, vibes were immaculate in Philadelphia.

The Sixers had stolen Game 2 from the Boston Celtics and played them close in a Game 3 loss. Although they handed back home-court advantage, they had a not-so-secret weapon in Joel Embiid returning for Game 4.

A half-hour later, vibes were decidedly no longer immaculate.

After the Sixers got out to an early 13-12 lead, the Celtics ended the first quarter on a 22-5 run. The Sixers never got back within 10 points of them again.

This was Embiid's first game back since he underwent a surprise appendectomy on April 9. He returned 17 days later, which is almost the exact median time of return for an in-season appendectomy that injury expert Jeff Stotts laid out based on the past 20 years of NBA injury data.

The bag was decidedly mixed for Embiid. That's more than we can say for most of his teammates.

With that in mind, let's dive into the biggest winners and losers from Game 4.

Winner: Joel Embiid

Embiid being out on the court at all was a win.

When the news broke out of nowhere that he needed an appendectomy, it seemed like a cosmic joke. Tyrese Maxey was already nursing a finger injury, but Embiid and Paul George were both seemingly healthy going into the playoffs.

Who knows whether the series against Boston would have gone much differently—or if the Sixers could have snuck into the No. 6 seed—if Embiid's appendix hadn't betrayed him. The Sixers likely would have felt better about their chances going into the series either way.

Embiid was undeniably rusty on Sunday, but he still finished with a team-high 26 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in 34 minutes. He hit nine shots and seven free-throw attempts on the night; his teammates combined to hit 24 and 14, respectively.

Afterward, he hinted that his recovery wasn't straightforward, making his return within this timeframe that much more impressive.

Joel Embiid says of his return to the floor that, “It was tough because i had some complications after the surgery”

“I don’t want to get into the detail”
— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) April 27, 2026

He was just about the only impressive from the Sixers' side Sunday, and even his performance came with plenty of warts.

Loser: Everyone else

When a hated rival blows you out by 32 points in the most important game of the season, you earn this label. Across the board.

But if we have to be more specific…

Loser: Nick Nurse

Nurse cost the Sixers any chance they had in competing in this game.

When Andre Drummond subbed in for Embiid with 5:11 remaining in the first quarter, the Sixers were down 11-10. By the time he subbed out three minutes later—one missed three and two shooting fouls in tow—the Sixers were down 22-13.

As Austin noted in his takeaways from Game 4, the Sixers have to employ drop coverage whenever Drummond is on the floor. The Celtics are lab-designed to destroy drop coverage. They have too many perimeter shooters to leave open, especially when Nikola Vučević is on the floor and they can go five-out.

Granted, Nurse doesn't have a ton of other options. Adem Bona has been their best defensive presence at center, but he's foul-happy and doesn't provide a ton offensively. Johni Broome is a rookie who's fresh off tearing his meniscus two months ago. Dominick Barlow, Trendon Watford and Jabari Walker could all be small-ball options, but the Celtics would ignore all three of them on offense.

Nurse played all of the right cards in Game 2 and kept the Sixers close in the tightly contested Game 3 loss. But his decision to go with Drummond as the first big off the bench sparked a Celtics avalanche that the Sixers could never dig their way out of.

Loser: VJ Edgecombe

For as good as VJ Edgecombe was in Game 2—when he spent most of the game picking on Sam Hauser and Baylor Scheierman en route to carving out his own place in NBA history—he was that bad in Game 4.

In Game 2, Edgecombe finished with 30 points on 12-of-20 shooting overall and 6-of-10 shooting from deep. Over the past two games combined, he had 16 points while shooting of 7-of-26 overall and 0-of-11 from deep.

That Game 2 eruption was a wake-up call to the Celtics, who've been sticking Jayson Tatum on Edgecombe far more ever since. Edgecombe did still haul in 10 rebounds and dish five assists in Game 3, but he was far more invisible Sunday. He finished with only six points on 2-of-9 shooting, four rebounds and one assist in 36 minutes.

It's not surprising that Edgecombe is struggling in his first playoffs. Even some of the all-time greats did.

Winner: VJ Edgecombe's offseason trainer

There is a silver lining to Edgecombe's struggles in this series. They're going to serve as rocket fuel for him all offseason.

Edgecombe getting to experience games with real stakes—particularly as the season advances—is invaluable for a rookie. The playoffs are the ultimate crucible. They have a unique way of exposing players' weak spots and how problematic they are from an overall team perspective.

Edgecombe can now see that teams will dare him to shoot from deep until he starts knocking down three-pointers more efficiently. On nights like Game 2, he made the biggest difference by knocking down those shots. His bricks in Games 3 and 4 helped lay the foundation for their back-to-back losses, though.

Three-point shooting already figured to be one of Edgecombe's biggest focuses, but this series could help him attack it with homicidal ferocity.

Loser: Everyone else, again

Just a reminder that everyone shares in the blame for a stinkbomb like this.

Winner: Math

We highlighted the importance of three-point shooting coming into the series. The TL;DR version: The Celtics were expected to shoot a much higher volume of threes than the Sixers, but the Sixers needed to keep pace to have any chance of variance winning out.

That's exactly what happened in Game 2, when the Sixers shot 19-of-30 from long range and the Celtics were 13-of-50. In Game 3—an eight-point Celtics win—the Celtics were 20-of-47 from deep, while the Sixers were 12-of-35.

Yes, you read that right. They got outscored by 24 points from deep in an eight-point loss.

It was more of the same Monday. The Celtics nearly hit as many threes (24) as the Sixers attempted (30). In total, the Celtics finished 24-of-53 from distance, while the Sixers were 9-of-30.

Payton Pritchard, who had 32 points on 12-of-21 shooting overall and 6-of-12 from deep, outscored the entire Sixers bench by himself. In fact, not a single player on the Sixers bench hit a three on Sunday.

The Sixers do not have the personnel to jack up 40-plus threes per game and expect positive results. That's an offseason problem for them to solve.

In the meantime, this series isn't likely to change Daryl Morey's mind about how the three-pointer has broken basketball. (Says the guy in the hot dog costume.)

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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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