Embiid, Maxey power Philly past Boston in a statement road win

Philadelphia walks into TD Garden and punches first, then keeps landing after Boston tries to rally. The 76ers control the opening quarter with a 32-19 burst, and the tone is set immediately when VJ Edgecombe starts the game with a 3-pointer in the 0-0 game and Philadelphia jumps to a 9-0 lead. Boston never fully settles in before halftime, and even though the Celtics trim the margin in the second quarter, the 76ers keep answering. Joel Embiid is the anchor throughout, Tyrese Maxey keeps attacking the rim, and Philadelphia carries a 55-50 lead into the break before stretching it back to 88-75 after three.

The story of the middle quarters is Boston trying to manufacture a run and Philadelphia repeatedly slamming the door just enough to preserve control. The Celtics do get their best stretch of the first half when Payton Pritchard drills a 26-foot step-back three to cap a 10-0 run and flip a 27-36 deficit into a 37-36 lead. That’s the closest Boston gets to dictating terms for long. Philadelphia responds with a 9-0 burst of its own in the second, including Neemias Queta’s reverse layup to keep the paint pressure alive, and the Sixers stabilize before the game can truly tilt. Then in the third, Maxey keeps Boston from ever fully closing the gap, knocking down a fadeaway jumper in the lane of the quarter’s key run as Philly answers the Celtics' push and reclaims separation.

From there, it becomes a star game, and Philadelphia has the two best players on the floor. Embiid finishes with 34 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists in 39 minutes, punishing single coverage, drawing help, and turning every deep catch into a problem. Maxey adds 30 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists, and the box score barely captures how relentlessly he attacks the rim. He scores on a driving reverse layup at the 2:00 mark of the fourth to push the lead to 101-98, then comes right back with another driving layup at 1:15 to make it 103-98. Those are the plays that matter: not just buckets, but momentum killers.

Boston does make the game uncomfortable late, and that’s where Jaylen Brown’s two-way impact shows up even in defeat. He scores 33 points, grabs 9 boards and blocks a shot with 2:25 left while Boston trails 98-99, giving the Celtics one last chance to swing the game. Derrick White also keeps the pressure on with 26 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, and he fuels a 12-point fourth-quarter push with a 25-foot pull-up three that cuts the margin to 94-95 after Philly had been up 92-84. But whenever the Celtics get within striking distance, Philadelphia has an answer — usually Maxey, sometimes Embiid, and enough shot-making from the supporting cast to keep the crowd from fully taking over.

That’s the turning point: Boston’s 12-point fourth-quarter run gets the game to 94-95, but the Sixers immediately absorb the punch and then Maxey reasserts control with back-to-back drives. From there, the Celtics are chasing, not dictating. Pritchard’s driving layup with 10.2 seconds left only trims the final margin to 100-107 before the clock runs out on Boston’s comeback bid.

For Philadelphia, this is the kind of road win that can matter later. It comes against a major Eastern Conference rival, it holds up through a Celtics push, and it shows the Sixers can close when the game gets tight in the fourth. For Boston, the good news is that Brown and White both delivered high-end scoring nights, but the defense had no answer for Embiid’s power game or Maxey’s downhill pressure. If these teams see each other again, the matchup will start with one question: can Boston keep Philadelphia out of the paint long enough to survive the rest?