Celtics-Sixers Game 2 Player Grades and Stats: Jaylen Brown Tries To Carry C's

BOSTON — The Celtics have some work to do after losing Game 2 to the Philadelphia 76ers. Some of this loss can be chalked up to cold shooting on a night the Sixers took and made three-pointers, but they also made plenty of mistakes on their way to a 111-97 loss.

Box Score

Game Flow

The Celtics and Sixers traded shots in the early part of the first quarter, but then the Celtics whipped off a surgical 16-0 run to take a 13 point lead. The Sixers answered with a 10-0 run out of the timeout and the cut the Boston lead to just three heading into the second quarter.

Boston got sloppy and Paul George and Quentin Grimes gave the Sixers some good minutes as Philly took the lead a few minutes into the quarter. The Sixers offense started to click and the Celtics defense started to make mistakes they weren’t making in Game 1, which led to open looks and made threes. The Celtics, meanwhile, went cold in the quarter, shooting just 1-8 from three, and falling behind by eight at halftime.

A 7-2 start to the third pushed Philly’s lead to 13. The Celtics turned it up and put together an 18-8 answer to cut it to four. VJ Edgecombe continued a great game that got the lead back up to seven heading into the fourth. The Celtics (3-12) and the Sixers (3-11) both struggled from deep in the third.

Both teams traded miss after miss to start the fourth, with both making some great defensive plays as well, but Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown finally got a couple of shots to fall to get it to two halfway through the fourth, but the Sixers answered with an 11-0 run thanks to some missed open looks and bad Boston turnovers. The lead got up to 16 and that was the end of it.

Player Grades

Jaylen Brown: A- (36 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 3 turnovers)

On a night no one else had anything working, Brown was the one true offensive engine on the Celtics. And yet, I struggled to get him to an A- only because he had so many isolation possessions.

According to Synergy Sports, Brown’s isolation time is up 7% in the playoffs. I think he dribbled too much, too often in this game. Still, he got the results Boston needed.

Jayson Tatum: B+ (19 points, 14 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal, 3 turnovers)

He shot just 8-19 overall and 2-8 from three. The rebounding and passing is always impressive, but he went for too many hero shots for my liking. Both Tatum and Brown might have gotten too caught up in the kill shots instead of scoring the points and taking the TKO.

Sam Hauser: C+ (6 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block)

He missed too many open shots and he was confused defensively all night. I don’t know if it was his fault or not, I just know he was in places that seemed out of position and he looked confused after the basket was made.

Neemias Queta: C+ (8 points, 6 rebounds)

I need to go back and figure out what happened to him in this game because he was non-existent. Foul trouble held him back in Game 1 but at least we saw signs of him playing great. I didn't see signs of anything in this game.

Derrick White: D+ (8 points (3-12 fg, 2-10 3pt) 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks)

He had the opportunity to make so many clutch shots and he missed most of them. This was a rough game for him.

Nikola Vučević: C+ (9 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist)

It felt like he was rushing a lot of his shots in this game. Also he’s not close to being ready defensively. I think Joe Mazzulla is going to try to get away with using him in this series, but I don’t know how useful he’ll be down the road.

Payton Pritchard: C (4 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists)

He had a rough shooting night too, missing all four of his three-pointers. He did grab four offensive rebounds, though

Baylor Scheierman: C (5 points, 1 rebound, 1 steal)

He hit both shots that he took, but he was also -8 in 11:27, so it was a rough stretch with him on the floor. I think he was lost defensively.

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