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Brown’s return to Boston silhouette marks the start of a new Sixers-Celtics chapter — one with real stakes once the season tips.
The Philadelphia 76ers defeated the Boston Celtics 115-113 in their preseason finale at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday night, marking Jaylen Brown’s first matchup against his former team since the trade that sent him to Philadelphia. While preseason games don’t count in the standings, this one carried the emotional weight of a rivalry debut — and the Sixers’ new-look roster got its most extended look together as a functional unit heading into the regular season.
Embiid picks apart Boston’s rotational frontcourt
Joel Embiid led Philadelphia with 27 points on 13 shots, drawing 13 free throw attempts in the process. Boston struggled to field defensively matched bodies in the paint, cycling through undersized options that couldn’t contain him. The Celtics benched most of their primary rotation — a deliberate preseason choice that left Embiid to work against lesser resistance, but the efficiency was still instructive. He knocked down elbow jumpers and a trailing three, settling into a rhythm the Sixers will need him to maintain when the pressure mounts in October.
Embiid did cough the ball up three times early and hit the floor harder than comfort dictates, but those are preseason noise. What matters: he moved the ball fluidly in space and made winning reads once the Celtics sent the extra defender.
The Sixers’ chemistry experiment is beginning to crystallize
Philadelphia’s new core — Embiid, LeBron James, Tyrese Maxey, and Brown — logged significant minutes together and showed flashes of a genuinely dangerous offensive system. The transition game, anchored by LeBron’s facilitating and Brown’s slashing, generated easy opportunities. The half-court sets were uneven and sometimes sloppy; the Sixers committed 11 turnovers in the first half alone, many driven by unfamiliar timing and positioning rather than poor execution.
Notably, VJ Edgecombe was unavailable for Philadelphia, forcing head coach Nick Nurse to start Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the two. That lineup choice doubles as a data point: if the Sixers face guard absences during the season, KCP’s two-way competence may be the answer. The fact that Philadelphia’s starting five has logged together exactly once during the entire preseason compounds the integration work ahead.
Boston’s bench depth could not overcome a restless Sixers crowd
The Celtics leaned hard on their second unit, with Hugo González (15 points, 3 assists) and Luka Garza (12 points, 5 rebounds) providing steady creation and shot-making. Boston’s depth is real and will matter in a grind. But this game underscored a preseason truth: when you rest your stars, you cede narrative control and give the opponent every chance to build chemistry uninterrupted. The Celtics’ frenetic, turnover-forcing defense — which had generated seven steals in the opening 12 minutes — eventually lost its teeth against an offense that began to sync up.
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