The Celtics and 76ers will meet in the playoffs for an NBA-record 23rd time Sunday in Game 1 on WMUR-TV, and Mike Cronin says Boston has the edge if it opens with the kind of physical, fast basketball that has carried it all season. If the Celtics play that way, he said, they will win the game and the series.
Cronin laid out four keys for Boston as it tries to take a 1-0 series lead, starting with the same defense that made the Celtics the NBA's best unit in the regular season. Boston allowed 107.2 points per game, and that number matters because the Sixers already showed they can score in bunches, with Tyrese Maxey and Vj Edgecombe combining for 74 points on Opening Night in October.
Boston also has recent form on its side, even if the regular-season matchup did not settle much. The Celtics and Sixers split the season series, two wins each, and Jayson Tatum did not play in any of those four games. That leaves a big part of the scouting report incomplete, but it also helps explain why the matchup has more uncertainty than a simple seed line would suggest.
Jaylen Brown has been the clearest sign of how Boston can absorb that uncertainty. He is averaging 29 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists per game, all career highs, and he stepped up when Tatum went down with an Achilles injury. When Brown is forcing defenses to choose between stopping his scoring and chasing his playmaking, Boston looks built to push the pace and control the tone.
That is why the next few hours matter so much for a series that, on paper, should not last more than five games. Boston can end this early if it establishes in Game 1 that it is the more physical team, the one that can set the terms rather than react to them. If it does not, the 23rd Celtics-76ers playoff meeting becomes a harder fight than the bracket would indicate.