7 Thoughts on Celtics-Sixers Game 7: Tatum at Center, Experience, and Final Chants

The Boston Celtics season will either move forward with a quick turnaround to face the New York Knicks, or it will come crashing to an end. Game 7s can be weird, with desperation leading to unique lineups, wild decisions, and players who rise to the occasion or wilt under the extreme pressure.

Here are seven thoughts heading into Game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers.

► This is where the “they’ve been here before” thing is supposed to take hold. We can, for a moment, forget the failures of Game 5 and Game 6 and focus on the fact that this Celtics roster has champions on it. Recent champions. Tatum and Brown have won before. They have come through in the biggest moments.

Tyrese Maxey has not. Joel Embiid certainly has not.

This is where the analysis goes out the window. Anything is on the table if the game starts to get away from a team. Every player is available. Every trick is on the table. If the league allowed the Harlem Globetrotters confetti bucket gag, one of the coaches would use it in a Game 7 as a change of pace.

This truly is a game of who wants it more … but who can chase that under the most control.

► I think it’s time for Jayson Tatum at center lineups, at least when Joel Embiid sits.

I’ll backtrack a step here before continuing on the Tatum point: The Celtics priority on offense should be attacking Embiid, finding a way to get him making decisions and pull him out of position. THEN, when he sits, Tatum should get minutes at center in small-ball lineups.

The Sixers can do what they want with Drummond in that situation. He’ll get played off the floor, and the Sixers can go back to Adem Bona and Dominick Barlowe, who are both exploitable.

THEN, Nick Nurse will have to call timeout, put Embiid back on the floor, and at which point he’ll get tired, start missing shots, and things should start to get out of control for Philly.

► What Jaylen Brown wants to be is a lot different than who he is at his best for the Celtics. What’s funny is that who he has been at his best this season is exactly what this team needs now: quick decisions, great reads, and tough shots when necessary.

But Brown focuses on the tough shots too much. He wants to be the “get on my back, I’ll carry you” guy, which he’s fully capable of, but he also can’t force. Any time he tries to force one part of his game, it all falls apart.

Brown needs to understand that the game will need different aspects of his game on different nights, and that he has enough of those aspects that he can adjust to what the game needs. It’s okay to take 10 shots in a game if his gravity is getting Derrick White or Neemias Queta 15 points apiece.

► Can we please have Derrick White initiate the offense more often? Can we get some pin-downs for Brown and Jayson Tatum so they can get the ball on the move and attack quickly?

Please?

► The Celtics haven't lost three games in a row since the first three games of the season. Ending the season that way would be poetic, because at the end of the final loss, the feelings about the team would basically be the same.

I don’t want to dive too deep into that thought because the game is yet to be played, and I’m realizing now that the paragraph I just wrote would be a good opening to a postgame piece if they lose. So I’m going to save it just in case.

But the reason I bring it up is this: They've only done it once all season, and the last time they did it before that was in Mazzulla’s first season. There's a reason for that.

► Tatum says he’s fine to play tonight. Mazzulla says he’s fine to play. Tatum is not on the injury report.

I’m not going to lie, though. There's always something nerve wracking about someone working out tightness in a lower leg.

No one on the Celtics seems concerned, though, so I’ll follow their lead on it, I guess.

► One fanbase gets to make the final “We Want Boston!” chant tonight. It’s going to be gutting for the other fanbase to hear it.

But it will be especially crushing to hear Sixers fans doing it at TD Garden as the Celtics are being eliminated after holding a 3-1 lead. There are criminals who would rather have Cedar Junction reopened than be subjected to watching Sixers fans dance and chant in Boston like that.

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