Sixers Magic Celtics VJ Edgecombe Embiid Maxey Suggs

Boston or Bust: Playoff-bound Sixers get the Celtics in round one

The Sixers are going to the playoffs. Let that sentence sit for a second because there were plenty of moments this season where it didn’t feel like a guarantee.

Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, the Sixers beat the Orlando Magic 109-97 in the play-in tournament to clinch a first-round matchup with the No. 2 seed Boston Celtics. Game 1 is Sunday at 1 p.m. ET in Boston. And if that doesn’t get your blood pumping, check for a pulse.

Playoff Bound Sixers…God Help Us All

Nobody on the outside expects the Sixers to beat the Celtics without Joel Embiid. Fine. That’s exactly the kind of energy this team should be feeding off.

Five double-figure scorers Wednesday. A rookie posting a double-double in his first career playoff game. A play-in crowd that sounded exactly like a playoff crowd. This team earned this the hard way and now they get to go run through a hailstorm in Boston with nothing to lose. I’ll take those odds.

Built Different: Tyrese Maxey

Maxey dropped 31 points and six assists and did it by being the only guy on the floor who refused to let the pace die. For long stretches this game crawled. Both teams run predictable offense.

Without Embiid, the Sixers are a pretty one-note group. But Maxey was a hurricane whenever he got his hands on the ball. He went up-tempo in transition. He played with downhill speed in the halfcourt. He hit a level of pull-up aggression that we hadn’t seen from him in weeks.

The fourth quarter was the Maxey show. Eleven points on 5-for-7 shooting. A driving layup when the game was in the balance. A step-back three after VJ Edgecombe stripped Paolo Banchero.

A floater that built the lead back up. That’s superstar stuff and it’s exactly why Embiid being out isn’t a death sentence for this team. Maxey is a legitimate number one option on a playoff team. He just proved it again. This is why the Sixers are in the playoffs.

Fearless: VJ Edgecombe

Nineteen points. Eleven rebounds. In his first ever playoff game. At 20 years old. The kid is different and it’s not even close to being a debate anymore.

Edgecombe struggled offensively in the first half, missing his first two threes and generally trying to figure out what postseason defense feels like. Didn’t matter. He was all action anyway.

He was dynamite in transition, kick-starting fast breaks by grabbing defensive rebounds and high-pointing the ball before anyone else could touch it. When he hits the turbo button, Orlando’s backcourt had zero chance of keeping up.

But the best moment of his night was defensive. Sixers up three in the fourth. Banchero, six-foot-ten and built like a linebacker, backing Edgecombe down from just inside the foul line.

Every single person in the building thought it was a lost cause. Edgecombe reached in at exactly the right moment, ripped the ball clean, and Maxey hit a step-back three on the other end. That’s a grown-man play from a rookie. You can’t teach that.

He got caught between worlds as a ballhandler a few times and coughed up some possessions. The Celtics will punish that kind of stuff a lot harder than Orlando did. But this soft launch was exactly what he needed before Sunday.

Edgecombe dogging Suggs…unreal

Ice Cold Man, Lemme Tell Ya…

DRUMBO Dagger Three

This is the most 2026 sentence I will ever type. Andre Drummond hit a dagger three-pointer to ice a playoff game and he deserved every second of the celebration.

Drummond went through an ugly two-month stretch earlier in the season, partially masked by Embiid being around to soak up minutes. But he has come roaring back at the exact right time.

He gave the Sixers 31 minutes off the bench Wednesday and controlled the glass, which has been the recipe for beating Orlando all year.

When Embiid is out, Drummond controlling the boards isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a requirement and he delivered.

The best part is Drummond hasn’t abused the green light from deep. He’s only shooting when he’s open and in rhythm, which is exactly how a corner spacer is supposed to play. Give the man his flowers. He’s been a professional all year and he delivered when it mattered most.

Block Party: Adem Bona

The stat line wasn’t sexy but Bona changed the third quarter by himself. Three blocked shots. Massive energy. The kind of possession-extending work that doesn’t always show up in the box score but absolutely tilts a game.

He was a bolt of lightning and Nick Nurse is going to need that same version of him against Boston if the Sixers are going to hang in this series.

Between Drummond and Bona, the Sixers managed to neutralize Orlando on the glass. That’s not something anyone expected heading into the night and it’s the biggest reason this game didn’t slip away in the third.

Playoff Riser: Kelly Oubre Jr

Nineteen points. Five threes on ten attempts. The Magic decided they were going to stay home on Maxey and George and dare Oubre to beat them from deep. He obliged.

Oubre shot a career-best 36 percent from three this season after offseason therapy got him flexibility back in his left wrist and hand. He also brought real physicality defensively on Franz Wagner, got into it with Banchero in the first quarter, and helped set the emotional tone for the entire building.

If he gets hot against Boston, this series gets a lot more interesting in a hurry. He’s the walking definition of a swing vote. Lock him in for a few games and the Sixers can steal something. Let him go cold and it gets ugly quick.

Here’s my one real concern heading into Sunday.

The offensive gameplan Wednesday was basically “let our best scorers cook one-on-one.” It worked against a Magic team that can’t shoot.

It worked because Maxey is a human heat check and Paul George can still get to his spots when the matchup is right. They went at Franz Wagner and Jamal Cain all night and it paid off.

Someone tell Nick Nurse that relying on isolation basketball against Boston without Joel Embiid on the floor is the perfect recipe to get his team steamrolled.

The Celtics have the personnel to switch everything and make you beat them with ball movement and off-ball action. George played great defense on Banchero and Wagner for three quarters Wednesday and then gassed out in the fourth when the isolation offense took too much out of him. Nobody on this roster can carry that load against Boston. Not in a series.

Nurse has to dial up something different.

The good news is the Sixers have been a better rebounding team than people realize. If they can extend possessions, turn Boston over, and let Maxey and Edgecombe run in transition, there’s a real path to stealing a game or two. Maybe more if things break right.

The Sixers are in the playoffs. Embiid is still out indefinitely with appendectomy recovery. The Celtics are going to be heavy favorites. None of that matters right now. This team punched its ticket the hard way and they deserve the chance to go throw haymakers at the No. 2 seed and see what happens.

Nobody outside of this building thinks the Sixers have a shot.

It’s familiar for the Sixers and hopefully this time around they prove that it’s exactly the position they want to be in when things get going Sunday afternoon in Boston.

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