Three Philadelphia 76ers Adjustments the Boston Celtics Should Anticipate In Game 2

BOSTON — In some ways, Game 1 of the opening-round series between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers was a case of everything going right for one team and nothing going right for the other.

“I think that they need to kind of let this one go,” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said about his stars, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe. “I think both of them had some pull ups in the 15, 14, 12 foot range that they're going to hit most of the time and just didn't seem to be able to get most of those going.”

There is certainly a theory that a few shots falling earlier in the game would have changed the dynamic of things, but the Sixers can’t rely on that, and the Celtics can’t anticipate Philadelphia just doing the same thing and hoping it works out better.

And while it’s not quite as simple as the team that won can do what it did while the team that lost has to make all the adjustments, it’s also on the Sixers to change the things that crushed them in Game 1. So here are three things the Celtics can anticipate.

More Three-Pointers

“I didn't really like our lack of three point shooting,” Nurse said. “I thought once we started got cold a little bit, I thought we were turning some down and we just can't do that. We just got to keep playing possession, every possession like a new one, not worrying about what happened in some of the older ones.”

Philadelphia shot 4-23 from three, so it might sound crazy to say they should take more a shot they hit at 17.4%. But cold shooting is cold shooting and not indicative of the overall process. They got some decent looks that just didn’t fall.

And it’s not like the Sixers were crushing it inside the arc, either.

The math is the math, and it’s a losing equation for the Sixers. They would have needed to shoot 69.5% to match Boston’s 16 three-pointers because of their low volume. Both teams took 90 shots and they were almost exactly equal at the free throw line (Philly was 17-23, Boston was 17-22). But Boston shot a very average 36.4% on 44 three-point attempts and that still earned them a 36-point advantage at the three-point line.

The Sixers were 23rd in the NBA in three-point attempts at 35.3 per game. Even if they matched their regular season averages, it would get them 12 made threes and put a lot more pressure on the Celtics to execute in the fourth quarter.

The crazy part of all of this is that Boston’s defense is designed to take away the paint, close out on corner three-point shooters, and allow more of the above-the-break shots. By driving the way the Sixers did and avoiding the threes, they played right into what makes Boston’s defense as good as it is.

The Celtics have to be ready to close out to the three-point line a bit more. They can’t get caught up in how poorly the Sixers shot and get lazy. Letting the Sixers get clean looks is an easy way to get them going.

“We're not trying to have anybody have dare shots or anything like that,” Payton Pritchard said after the team’s Monday practice. “But obviously with Paul George, Maxey and them, trying to take away some of their gaps and stuff and then when they kick it, closing out and making them think about their shots. Sometimes they hit it, but just like over and over again, having a solid closeout."

Junk defenses

They didn’t go to it like Miami or Milwaukee, but the Sixers were ninth in the NBA in how often they went to zone defenses. But they barely used it in Game 1.

That has to change. The Celtics are too good to guard straight up with the personnel Philadelphia has. This easy split of a double by Jayson Tatum for a wide open dunk highlights the issues pretty clearly.

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— John Karalis (@JohnKaralisClip) April 20, 2026

Kelly Oubre Jr. doesn’t know how to navigate a screen, Dominick Barlow doesn’t have any idea how to defend Tatum with an opening, there's no chance any of the other Sixers defenders will leave shooters in the corners to get in Tatum’s way.

I can write about a million adjustments the Sixers can make and none of them will make this kind of defense any better. So it’s time to junk it up and maybe hope the Celtics can whiff on a few curveballs. They need to get the ball out of the paint and see if the Celtics can fall in love with standing around and shooting.

We saw Boston slow their offense down at the beginning of the third quarter and that's where the Sixers made a little run. It was short-lived, but it was still there. They have to try to turn Boston in their own worst enemy, which means the Celtics HAVE to focus on ball-movement.

Zones can be confusing in small doses, but they can also be easy to destroy if a team stays focused. Teams can still use picks to pull defenders out of position and open up gaps, and ball-movement can collapse the whole thing. The Celtics will just have to stay patient and not fall in love with shooting over the top of it.

Attack Boston’s bigs

Neemias Queta got into foul trouble early on in Game 1, which didn’t ultimately hurt them in the game but it could moving forward.

I’m convinced Queta was on his way to another 20-point night if he’d been able to stay on the floor. The Sixers defense has no idea how to handle Boston’s triple threat of elite drivers, high-level shooters, and a dangerous roll man in Queta.

So I expect them to really try to attack Queta not just by putting him in actions, but by throwing fakes at him and testing his discipline. If he fails and gets more quick fouls, then the Sixers should going at Nikola Vucevic and Luka Garza with ferocity.

Whenever a Sixers wing sees a Boston big on the floor, especially one not from Portugal, they need to be attacking that matchup over and over.

Boston can counter that with pre-switches to change matchups whenever possible. They can also get creative on where the bigs are hiding defensively.

If the Sixers are as relentless as they should be, the Celtics could also counter with Jayson Tatum minutes at center and just switch everything.

Philadelphia needs to do something drastic in Game 2 because Game 1 was much worse than just cold shooting versus hot shooting. There are a lot of reasons why Boston hit a lot more shots, and it’s because the Sixers defense was awful. The Sixers missed some good, open looks, but their reaction to those misses played right into Boston’s hands.

The Celtics can play a fundamentally similar game and still win, but the Sixers need to make changes. These three should be on Boston’s radar.

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