For Joel Embiid’s entire career, the Sixers haven’t had a big wing on their roster who could guard Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, then turn around and make them guard him on the other end. But Paul George, when healthy, gives Philly a theoretical solution to this long-running matchup issue Christmas Day will be the first look at how it goes.

A clash against the defending champs will be a measuring stick for the new-look Sixers, a team that’s spent most of this season toiling between “work in progress” and “hopeless disappointment.” For the Celtics, it’s little more than the 30th game of their season. Their regular season is less about self-discovery than self-preservation. For some, that tendency to thrive on autopilot is too mechanical to entertain. But, static personnel aside, Boston is an evolving organism that can still ultimately be even better than it was last season. One Celtic, in particular, is in the middle of a subtle and long-anticipated growth spurt that should garner more attention than it has. 

Since he became an All-Star-caliber player, Boston has wanted Brown to make two tangible strides: get to the line and facilitate for other people. This year, coming off a championship run that saw him grab Eastern Conference Finals and Finals MVP, Brown is steadily improving in those two areas; it should terrify a league that still hasn’t figured out how to slow this team down. 

His 6.0 free throw attempts per game are a career-high, and his free throw rate is up a whopping 9.1 percentage points from last season.  Brown has shot at least 10 free throws in seven games this season, which is already another career high and two more than all of last year. He’s tied for drawing the 14th-most fouls per 100 possessions, too. That’s more than Tatum, Towns, and Trae Young. 

He’s obviously stronger than ever. He’s also more patient, a quality that really pops when you look at some of the passes he’s made this season. Brown’s assist rate (21.5 percent) is also a career high, largely because defenses are showing more help than ever. He’s currently tied for seventh across the entire league in secondary assists per game and generates 1.49 points per chance on scoring chances that end when he passes the ball, which is first out of 56 players who’ve logged at least 100 plays, per Sportradar. 

Yes, Brown’s true shooting percentage is below league average for the first time since 2019 and advanced catch-all stats still don’t gush over his impact. But there’s good reason to think his accuracy from the midrange and 3-point line will eventually rise to where it’s been the past few years. Until then, he’s doing everything that’s asked of him and is still an All-NBA candidate. 

In a stark departure from every season since Tatum’s rookie year, right now lineups that include Brown but not Tatum are more efficient than lineups with Tatum but not Brown. The Celtics just may be unbeatable if this holds true: