The Celtics beat the 76ers 123-101 in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and the player who decided it was Paul George. He scored 36 points on 14-of-22 shooting, made 6 of 11 threes and was plus-17 in 30 minutes against the team that traded him to Boston in July, per ESPN’s box score. Jaylen Brown, the player Boston sent the other way, had 13 points on 4-of-9 shooting, four fouls, four turnovers and a minus-27, the worst plus-minus of anyone who played.
My take: the night was billed as Jayson Tatum against Brown, and that framing missed what the trade was for. Boston traded Brown for a second scorer who could carry stretches next to Tatum, plus picks, and on the first night the two teams met, that second scorer won the game. It’s the clearest look yet at the Celtics’ side of the argument. Boston is now 9-2 and half a game ahead of Philadelphia in the Atlantic.
The greeting got the attention
Before tipoff, Tatum tried to dap up Brown and got the cold shoulder, per ESPN. Brown had said on Sunday that there was “nothing to talk about” with Tatum, and he meant it.
I wrote last month that Brown’s grievance about the trade is fair but aimed at the wrong Celtic, and nothing about Tuesday changed that. The snub will run on every highlight show. The basketball was more interesting.
George won it twice
George did his damage in two bursts. He scored 13 in the second quarter, when Boston stretched a 30-23 lead to 62-51 at the half, per ESPN’s play-by-play. Then he scored 14 in the fourth, when Boston put it away.
Philadelphia had come all the way back by then. The Sixers opened the third quarter by cutting the lead to 62-56, and Dean Wade’s 3 tied it at 76 with 4:02 left in the quarter. Tyrese Maxey tied it again at 79 with a 3 at 3:19. That was the last time the 76ers were level.
From 79-79, Boston outscored Philadelphia 26-3 over about seven minutes of game time. Payton Pritchard hit three 3s in that stretch, and Sam Hauser, Tatum and Baylor Scheierman hit one each. Then George finished it: a 3 at 9:36 of the fourth to make it 100-82, a three-point play at 8:44 and a layup at 8:17 that made it 105-82. He added two more 3s off Tatum passes, the second at 5:38 for 111-87, and the lead peaked at 29 at 118-89.
That fourth quarter is the job description. Boston’s fourth quarters were a problem early this season, and the fix was always going to need someone besides Tatum who could score in a hurry. Tuesday, Tatum spent the start of the fourth on the bench and Boston still blew the game open.
George had said before the game that it carried no extra meaning for him, per ESPN. His box score said otherwise. The 36 points were his second-highest total of the season, behind the 38 he scored in the opener in Detroit, and well above the 20.4 a game he averaged across his first nine games, per his ESPN game log.
Brown never found his footing
Brown came in playing well. He averaged 22.3 points over his first 10 games with Philadelphia and scored 29 in Sunday’s win in Chicago, per his ESPN game log. Tuesday was different from the start, and fouls were a big part of it.
He picked up two fouls in the first quarter, one of them an offensive foul, per the play-by-play. His third came with 2:24 left in the half, and his fourth came at 10:40 of the third quarter. He went to the bench at 8:39 of the third and didn’t return until the fourth. Philadelphia erased the last eight points of the deficit, from 69-61 to 79-79, with him on the bench, and Boston’s 26-3 run started while he sat.
He scored five points in the fourth, including a 3 at 7:37, but by then Boston led 105-82. He finished with 26 minutes, a season low by a wide margin. He hadn’t played fewer than 33 in any of his first 10 games.
One foul-plagued night doesn’t change what Brown is: a five-time All-Star playing well for a 9-3 team. It does show how this matchup works now. Boston won going away without ever needing a stop on Brown, because George gave Philadelphia a problem it couldn’t solve.
The bench beat the Sixers’ bench by 20
George had help. Boston’s bench outscored Philadelphia’s 49-29, per the box score. Pritchard had 18 points, five assists and a team-best plus-26 in 30 minutes. Hauser made 4 of 6 threes for 12 points, and Hugo Gonzalez added 10 points and three steals.
Pritchard’s night fits a pattern. I wrote after the eye scare last week that the Celtics’ bench runs through him, and his 3s are what turned the game. He hit two in the last four minutes of the third quarter and two more in the first two minutes of the fourth. Boston made 22 of 49 threes as a team. Philadelphia made 11 of 37, and was 3 of 16 in the first half, per NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Tatum had a quieter line than the buildup suggested: 21 points, six rebounds and four assists in 32 minutes, on 8-of-17 shooting. He also gave Boston a dunk over LeBron James, and he didn’t have to do more than that.
What the trade looks like now
Boston sent Brown to Philadelphia for George, a 2028 first-round pick, a 2031 first-round pick and two second-rounders, per NBA.com. The deal became official on July 6. Philadelphia got the younger star. Boston got a 36-year-old scorer and the picks.
That’s the right way to judge it. George can still score like this; he opened the season with 38. What Boston needs to find out is whether he can do it in April and May, after playing 41 and 37 regular-season games in his two seasons in Philadelphia, per Basketball Reference. I laid out why George’s minutes need guarding, and nights like Tuesday make that case stronger. Boston needs this version of him in the spring.
What comes next
The Celtics play in Toronto on Wednesday, the second night of a back-to-back, per ESPN’s schedule. Brown’s first game back at TD Garden is Jan. 21.
Brown will get more nights like his 30 in Detroit and 29 in Chicago. But the first meeting showed what Boston bought in July: a second scorer who can finish off a game while Tatum sits. George scored eight points in the first four minutes of the fourth, with Tatum on the bench. If George is healthy in the spring, he’s the reason Boston wins this trade.