Boston Celtics were business-like following sweep of 76ers: ‘I don’t know if it’s much to celebrate, honestly’

After the Boston Celtics finished off the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 4 110-106 on Sunday, mercifully bringing an end to the Sixers’ nightmare season, Brad Stevens was still disappointed in the way his team finished the game.

As time wound down, the Celtics watched a 10-point lead dwindle to four after a few careless turnovers and a couple of desperation shots by the Sixers. The Celtics’ win was never in doubt, but their execution annoyed their coach.

“We’ve got to play better in the last three minutes of the game,” Stevens said, when asked how long the Celtics will enjoy this win. “That’s all I care about right now.”

Jaylen Brown confirmed Stevens’ preoccupation.

“How we finished the game,” Brown said, when asked about Stevens’ post-game message. “We didn’t finish the game — that’s what he came in and talked to us about. We’ve got to play 48 minutes. How we start is how we gotta finish. Getting ready for the next game, we can’t let things carry over. We’ve got to be ready to hit first and play for a full 48 minutes against Toronto. They’re a good team.”

That was how all of the Celtics approached their media availabilities following the win. There were few smiles and few jokes — just a bunch of players going about their business.

The focus makes sense: The Celtics have their goals set on loftier heights than a first-round series against a banged-up, dysfunctional Sixers squad who offered little more than token resistance after Game 1.

“I don’t know if it’s much to celebrate, honestly,” Kemba Walker said, just minutes after winning the first playoff series of his career. “We didn’t do much yet. It’s a great thing that we were able to beat that team, of course. It’s a great team, great players, and it does feel good. But we know it’s not over. We know. Toronto plays Brooklyn and depending on how that goes, Toronto is the defending champion, a tough team. So we’re going to watch out for that game and see how that goes and take it one day at a time. Whenever we know who we’re going to face, be prepared.”

Still, it seems strange to have so little fanfare following a series against the Sixers. Last time these teams met in the postseason, the five games were full of drama. Marcus Morris flashed “3-0″ in Joel Embiid’s face. The Sixers dropped confetti onto the court prematurely and spent nearly an hour cleaning it up before overtime, only to lose. There was real drama, real bad blood, real rivalry.

There was no drama Sunday afternoon. Philadelphia tried, and it pulled ahead for a while. Josh Richardson showed a lot of fight defending Jayson Tatum. But the two most memorable moments in a close-out game were Tobias Harris’ nasty fall (mercifully, he seemed to be okay) and a final minute that stretched interminably for little reason — a far cry from Marcus Smart accidentally making a free throw he meant to miss, then sprinting up the court to steal a deep pass meant for Embiid.

Presumably, that was another reason the Celtics were subdued. Tensions ran high in 2018, even though the series was just a game longer. In 2020, the Sixers were sad and tired, even when they tried hard. Joel Embiid stopped talking trash about the Celtics a while ago — in 2018, he said Sixers-Celtics wasn’t a rivalry because “they always kick our ass.”

On Sunday, Embiid was left speaking existentially in the wake of the 2019-20 season.

“I don’t make the decisions. I’m here in Philly. Whatever happens, happens,” Embiid said. “I’ve always said that I want to end my career here, and if it happens, good. If it doesn’t happen, well, you move on and all that stuff.”

However, the Sixers’ problems are mercifully their own, and not something that concerns the Celtics. The Raptors loom, and they will be a much tougher test.

Thus, the focus.

“I think one of the jobs of the coach is to be prepared for what’s ahead,” Stevens said. “And so obviously we’ve got an idea, and get ready, obviously it’s 3-0, but get ready for if Toronto closes it out tonight to be ready to play whenever they tell us we’re playing. But at the end of the day there’s not a lot of savoring when you’re in the middle of it. I think you end up looking back on things after seasons are over, careers are over or people move on or whatever, and that’s when you enjoy it.”

The Celtics might need to win some more games to make this postseason run something they remember down the road. Their four-game run through Philadelphia feels like it could slip through the cracks.

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