Did The Sixers Kill The Boston Celtics And Force Them To Blow Up Their Core? Hard To Say No
Boston Globe. Getty Images.On two separate occasions, the Boston Celtics were just 48 minutes away from being eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers men's professional basketball team this past season in the 2nd round of the playoffs. They dropped game 1 to a Sixers team that didn't even have Joel Embiid in the lineup.
If the Philadelphia 76ers weren't the most sorry and pathetic collection of losers ever assembled within the same organization, the Celtics don't even make it to the conference finals this year. They had 2 opportunities to go out and win a game to advance past the 2nd round for the first time since 2001, and the Sixers shat their pants in each of those opportunities. Back-to-back closeout games and they put up fewer than 90 points in each of them. The 2023 conference semifinals had absolutely nothing to do with the Celtics being a good ball club, but rather everything to do with the Sixers being a bunch of disgusting losers.
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Fanboys on Twitter might not realize it, but management sure as heck did. They knew they wouldn't get lucky enough to play the Sixers in the 2nd round of the playoffs every year, and they know they needed to shakeup this roster. So what did the Celtics go out and do?
I'm sure that going down 3-0 in the Miami series helped solidify management's position to blow the whole team up this offseason. But make no mistake about it, those seeds were planted the moment the Celtics lost game 1 to an Embiid-less Sixers squad. As soon as James Harden hit that game winner, Boston knew that shit wasn't sustainable.
So credit to them for doing what's right and making the major changes necessary to change the culture in their building. I wish I could say the same about the Sixers, but they're currently on their knees begging James Harden to stay in Philly.