Boston didn't just win the first regular-season meeting between Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown as opponents. The Celtics beat Philadelphia 123–101 on Tuesday night, with Paul George scoring 36 points against his former club and Boston's three-point shooting turning a heavyweight Eastern Conference matchup into a statement road victory. George made six threes, and the Celtics finished with 22 makes from 49 attempts beyond the arc. That's a lot of perimeter punishment for a Sixers team that couldn't consistently match the visitors' spacing or shot-making.
The night had an obvious emotional hook: Brown, now wearing Philadelphia colours, opposite his former Celtics teammate Tatum, while George returned to face the Sixers. Yet the most important matchup wasn't a one-on-one duel between the two Jays. It was Boston's willingness to keep moving the ball and trust its perimeter options. George's 36 points on efficient shooting gave the Celtics a primary scorer, but the breadth of their outside attack made that scoring difficult to contain. Eight Celtics hit at least one three-pointer, so Philadelphia couldn't solve the problem by simply loading up on George.
Boston set the tone early, leading 30–23 after the opening quarter and 62–51 at halftime. Philadelphia fought back in the third, trimming the deficit through its more productive attacking stretches, but the Celtics didn't allow the comeback to become a late-game escape act. A 32–19 final quarter closed the contest decisively. Boston's ability to respond after the Sixers' push mattered as much as the final margin: it showed an attack with enough outlets to avoid becoming trapped in a single scoring matchup.
Tatum added 21 points, six rebounds and four assists, while Payton Pritchard supplied 18 points. Those contributions helped explain why George's big night wasn't merely an isolated hot hand. When Philadelphia shifted attention towards one threat, Boston still had capable creators and shooters available. The Celtics' 22 made threes were a much sharper weapon than the Sixers' 10, a 36-point gap in scoring from deep that dwarfed the final 22-point margin. It's the sort of arithmetic that makes every missed rotation feel expensive.
For Philadelphia, Tyrese Maxey scored 24 points, Joel Embiid finished with 16 and Brown had 13. Brown's 4-for-9 shooting line wasn't disastrous, but his four turnovers and foul trouble restricted his influence in a game that naturally carried extra scrutiny. Embiid went 2-for-9 from the floor and relied heavily on free throws for his scoring. Philadelphia had stretches of effective offence, but it couldn't produce enough stops at the other end to sustain its third-quarter challenge.
The contrast is particularly striking because Philadelphia entered the contest near the top of the East. Boston didn't need to win every individual battle to beat a strong opponent on the road. It won the more consequential contest for clean, high-value shots, then kept its composure when the home side threatened to close the gap. George was the headline act, but Boston's spacing, collective shooting and fourth-quarter execution were the bigger team story.
The Celtics leave Philadelphia with a win that says something useful about their ceiling: when George is scoring freely and Tatum and Pritchard are contributing alongside him, opponents face choices they can't comfortably cover all at once. For the Sixers, the lesson is equally concrete. A star-heavy lineup still has to protect the arc and keep the ball moving when its first options are crowded. Boston made that weakness costly, and the scoreboard didn't flatter the visitors.
Game statistics and reporting: NBA box score, CBS Sports box score, CelticsBlog game report.
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