Sixers get demolished in Boston 123-91 in one of the worst playoff losses in franchise history

The Sixers opened their 2026 playoffs with one of the most pathetic, gutless, embarrassing performances I have ever watched from a Philadelphia basketball team and that’s saying something.

The Celtics beat the Sixers 123-91 at TD Garden in Game 1. A 32-point loss in a playoff game, which happened to be the first playoff game this franchise has played in a year after crawling through a 24-win nightmare season and fighting through a play-in tournament just to get here.

This is what they showed up with. Absolute garbage from start to finish.

Sixers demolished in Boston 123-91

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Down 15 after the first quarter. Down 18 at the half. Down 24 after the third. This game was never competitive. Not for a single second. Not for a single possession. The Celtics treated the Sixers like they didn’t belong on the same floor and the Sixers did absolutely nothing to prove them wrong.

I get it. Embiid is out. Everyone knows Embiid is out. Nobody expected the Sixers to come into Boston and win this series without their best player. It was always going to be a prayer to be truly competitive against the two seed at full strength.

Still, there’s a massive difference between losing a hard-fought game on the road and getting your face caved in by 32 points on national television.

We expected to compete. We expected to fight. We expected the same team that beat Orlando in the play-in with energy and grit to at least make Boston earn it. Instead we got a team that rolled over in the first quarter and never got off the mat.

That’s unacceptable. I don’t care who’s injured. I don’t care who you’re playing. You don’t go out there and get embarrassed like that in a playoff game. Not when this city waited six years for a team worth caring about again.

The Shooting Was a Hate Crime Against Basketball

The Sixers shot 4-for-23 from three. Do the math. That’s a miserable seventeen percent from beyond the arc, which is good for the second-worst three-point shooting performance in franchise playoff history on at least 20 attempts.

The only worse game was a 3-for-25 nightmare against the Nets in 1999.

Kelly Oubre and VJ Edgecombe both went 0-for-5 from deep, making this the first playoff game in Sixers history where two players took five or more threes and didn’t make a single one.

Meanwhile the Celtics hit 16 threes and the Sixers just watched it happen. Four made threes against 16 allowed.

That’s only happened eight times in the entire history of the NBA playoffs. The last five teams it happened to were all playing against the Celtics. Boston is a three-point machine and the Sixers didn’t even pretend to have a plan for it. They just stood there, got torched from every angle, and walked to the locker room down 32.

Every Single Player Was Terrible

Eight Sixers finished at minus-10 or worse. That’s only happened one other time in franchise playoff history. Maxey was minus-29. The franchise cornerstone. The max contract guy.

The player who is supposed to carry this team when Embiid is out. Minus-29. Edgecombe was minus-26. The rookie who looked so good in the play-in was completely overwhelmed. Justin Edwards was minus-21 in 17 minutes.

Seventeen minutes. How do you manage to be that bad in 17 minutes? Only four Sixers in history have posted a worse plus-minus in that few minutes of playoff action.

Paul George was minus-10 which looks respectable compared to everyone else but was still thoroughly mediocre for a guy the Sixers need to play like a star in this series.

Oubre was minus-21 and couldn’t buy a three. Drummond was minus-19 and got outworked on the glass. There is not a single player on this roster who can walk away from Game 1 feeling good about what they did. Not one.

The History Is Humiliating

In the last 30 years, there have only been two worse Game 1 losses in an Eastern Conference first-round series. The 2019 Pistons lost by 35 to the Bucks and the 2012 Knicks lost by 33 to the Heat.

That’s the company the Sixers are in. Two teams that got swept.

This was the worst Game 1 loss for the Sixers in 44 years, since the Mother’s Day Massacre in 1982 when the Celtics beat them 121-81 at Boston Garden. The 32-point margin is the seventh worst playoff loss in franchise history. Five of the nine worst playoff losses in Sixers history have come against the Celtics including the last two.

This franchise has a Boston problem and it’s only getting worse.

The one thing I’ll hold onto is that the 1982 team came back and won that series after getting destroyed in Game 1 by 40. But that team had Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Andrew Toney. This team has a taped-up Maxey, a rusty Paul George, and a bunch of kids who just got a crash course in what real playoff basketball looks like.

Game 2 Is Everything

If the Sixers come out Tuesday night and get run out of the building again, this series is over. Done. Wrapped up before it ever gets back to Philly. There is no coming back from 0-2 against this Celtics team if both losses look like this.

Maxey has to be significantly better. George has to stop being a spectator and start being the All-Star this team is paying him to be. The three-point shooting needs to not be historically terrible and somebody, anybody, needs to figure out how to make the Celtics work for their points because letting them shoot 16 threes and cruise to 123 points is a death sentence.

I still believe this team has fight in them. I saw it in the play-in game. I saw it in the regular season when they were counted out a dozen times, but Sunday was the worst possible version of this team at the worst possible time.

There’s no spinning it. There’s no silver lining. It was miserable and bad and everyone involved should be embarrassed. Game 2 is Tuesday night at TD Garden. 7 p.m. ET. Show up or go home.

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