The Philadelphia 76ers finally got one over on the Boston Celtics by winning Game 7 at the Garden, and Sixers fans weren’t going to let anyone forget about it, especially Brian Scalabrine.
The Sixers came back from a 3-1 series deficit in surprising circumstances to win their first series against their Eastern Conference rivals since 1982. Boston had defeated Philly in six straight playoff series since then. However, with Jayson Tatum missing Game 7 due to injury and Joel Embiid returning healthy, Philadelphia built an early lead and held on during a thrilling stretch run for a 109-100 victory.
There was plenty of trash talk in the game and the series between the two rivals, mainly with Embiid and Celtics star Jaylen Brown going back and forth. And that extended to the postgame show on NBC Sports Boston as the Celtics’ broadcast team was trying to make sense of their postseason collapse. Sixers fans showed up with a taunting “we want Boston” chant.
The best Celtics analyst, Brian Scalabrine, could do in the moment was respond with “you are ugly.”
It’s easy to see why Scal and Celtics fans were so flustered. They looked to be cruising in the series and seemed well on their way to another NBA Finals appearance after Brown carried the team through the regular season and Jayson Tatum completed an incredible return from his Achilles injury. But they fell apart in the fourth quarter in Game 5, Tatum’s body broke down, and Joe Mazzulla made some very confusing decisions, none more so than his bizarre starting lineup to Game 7. It’s going to be a long offseason in Boston. And it doesn’t help that the Bruins got knocked out of the playoffs this week and the Red Sox just fired their manager.
But at least they have the Patriots season to look forward to. Right?…. uhhh… about that…
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