Celtics Pull Away From 76ers After Fast Start, Take Game 1 in Convincing Fashion

Look, the final score was 123-91, and honestly, it wasn't that close.

Boston came out and just took the Philadelphia 76ers apart, piece by piece, from the opening minutes. Game 1 wasn't a dogfight that got out of hand. It was a statement.

Sure, it opened at 6-6. Don't let that fool you.

Jayson Tatum got a fast break layup to push it to 15-7, Derrick White knocked down a three to make it 20-9, and that was more or less the ballgame - philosophically speaking - by the time we were barely eight minutes in. Boston was running, making shots, and Philadelphia was already chasing a bus that had left the stop.

There was one moment for the 76ers faithful to hold onto in that first quarter. Kelly Oubre Jr. attacked the baseline, switched the ball from his right to left hand somewhere up in the air - one of those plays that makes you sit up straight - and threw down a dunk that cut it to 26-18. Beautiful play. Crowd felt it. Didn't matter.

Tatum hit an outlet pass to Jordan Walsh to close the quarter and Boston walked into the second up 33-18. The tone was already set.

Then Luka Garza hit a three to make it 40-22 and whatever you thought might still be competitive about this game, go ahead and let that thought go. From that 6-6 tie, the Celtics had outscored Philadelphia 34-16. That's not a trend. That's a problem.

Tatum kept coming. A three-pointer with 5:46 left in the half stretched it to 54-31, and by halftime Boston was up 64-46 with Tatum already sitting on 19 points, eight rebounds, and four assists. Halftime. The man was having a full game before the third quarter even tipped off.

I'll be honest with you - Philadelphia had a window in the third. Briefly. Jaylen Brown hit a fadeaway to make it 70-51, but the 76ers had a look at cutting it to 13 and couldn't cash it in. Turnover. Brown deflected the outlet pass, turned it into points, Boston went on a 10-0 run, and White found Brown on a bounce pass to make it 83-58. That was that. Tyrese Maxey hit a buzzer-beater to end the third - nice shot, genuinely, good for him - but they were still down 95-71. A buzzer-beater to make a 24-point deficit feel a little less humiliating is the kind of moral victory that doesn't show up in the series record.

Tatum opened the fourth with a layup to push it to 105-75. The rest was clock management.

He finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists, and two steals. Brown had 26. Boston had 11 guys score - eleven - which tells you everything about a roster that just doesn't have a weak link right now. Philadelphia had no answer for the first guy, let alone the eleventh.

Maxey led Philly with 21 on 8-of-20 shooting. Paul George had 17. V.J. Edgecombe chipped in 13. The 76ers shot 38.9 percent from the field and - here's the number that really stings - 17.4 percent from three. You cannot win a basketball game in this era shooting 17 percent from deep. You just can't. That's not a slump, that's a team that couldn't get clean looks when they desperately needed them.

Boston shot 50 percent overall and 36.4 from three, which are good numbers, not historic numbers, which somehow makes it worse for Philadelphia. The Celtics didn't even need to be at their best.

Here's the thing - this game was decided before halftime, and the reason it was decided before halftime is Joel Embiid wasn't there. Without him, Philadelphia doesn't have the size or the gravity to make Boston respect the paint, and when you can't make a team respect the paint, they load up on your shooters and your shooters go 17 percent from three. It's a cascading problem with no real fix available to Doc Rivers on the current roster.

That 33-18 first quarter gap was the whole story. Philly never closed it. Never really came close to closing it.

Game 2 is the one that'll tell us something. Either the 76ers find a way to make adjustments and turn this into an actual series, or Boston is about to remind everyone why they came into this thing as the favorite. Right now, nothing I saw in Game 1 makes me think Philadelphia has an answer.