Multiple Sixers explain what happened in 4th quarter vs. Celtics

Posted by author February 3, 2025 Sports

Spread the love

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers had their chances on Sunday against the defending champion Boston Celtics. The Sixers led by as many as 26 in the third quarter and were looking to finish off what would have been an impressive win.

Instead, the Celtics finally flipped the switch. They outscored the Sixers 38-16 in the fourth and handed the Sixers a 118-110 loss. Philadelphia dropped to 19-29 on the season and remained a game back of the Chicago Bulls for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.

A big difference was the 3-point shooting. Boston shot 13-for-37 from deep through three quarters, but then shot 8-for-12 from beyond the arc in the fourth. Jayson Tatum had 13 of his 35 points in the final frame and Jaylen Brown made some big plays as well.

Afterward, Tyrese Maxey and Co. explained what went wrong down the stretch in a tough loss to the Celtics:

Maxey

“We didn’t go a good job of just, like, offensively, they were doubling me almost every action. So it’s like I didn’t do a good job of sometimes trusting it and trying to give the ball up early and let my teammates make the plays. Then, we didn’t do a good job of our spacing. That’s on me. I gotta get guys in the right spots and kinda quarterback the situation. Then defensively, I think the end of the third really hurt us, man. I think we went zone for a little bit and they hit, like, five 3s very quickly and they came out in the fourth—once they were hot, they’re hot. Once you gotta start helping on the Tatum and Brown drives, that’s what (Derrick) White and (Jrue) Holiday and (Sam) Hauser. That’s what all of them are there for. They don’t want you to help and once you gotta start helping, it makes it very difficult.”

Guerschon Yabusele

“They was making those tough shots in the fourth quarter and they got going like that. I just feel like, three, four, five possessions, they came back and we came back and it was on us to contain them. We didn’t find a great solution on offense. So they came back and they got the lead.”

Ricky Council IV

“They started hitting shots. We stopped hitting shots. It was simple as that. We weren’t getting any stops. We were getting the lead because we were getting stops an running out in transition and making big play after big play and then we stopped getting stops and we stopped scoring and stopped making big plays and now it’s an 8-point game and a tie game and they got the lead.”

Coach Nick Nurse

Well, I mean, the game the whole time boiled down to whether we could continue to get shots and score the ball. The offense dried up. We played in transition a little bit. We kinda got forced into playing way more zone than we wanted to with Tyrese in early foul trouble and they hit, what eight 3s in the fourth? Or something like that. A lot of those they were missing, but I don’t think we were getting quite out to contest. There was just too many point blank wide-open ones and too many shooters out there, but just again, a little bit that story. We were playing in transition a little too much defensively after not scoring the ball.”