Sixers stay alive, Celtics series to go to Game Five
McConnell leads the Sixers to win to send series back to Boston
PHILADELPHIA » The answer to Brett Brown’s poetic pre-game soliloquy with its “how do I help my stars be stars?” theme was T.J. McConnell. Sixers fans who watched McConnell terrorize the Celtics in Game 2 should be wondering what took Brown so long to realize the dynamic guard gives him a better chance to win by playing significant minutes.
At any rate, McConnell started with, not in place of, point guard Ben Simmons Monday night against the Celtics at the Wells Fargo Center. Kicked to the curb was Robert Covington, his faulty jump shot and matador defense better suited to the view from afar.
The energy lift was epic. Whether McConnell was barreling into the paint for a layup or kicking the ball out to a shooter, whether he was launching a three-point bomb or celebrating one of seven made by the Sixers, he almost always was at the scene of a big play.
The boost enabled the Sixers to avoid being swept with a convincing, 103-92 victory that inches them within one win of returning the series to Philly. Game 5 is Wednesday in Beantown.
“There’s an injection of energy that you immediately know you’re going to get with him,” Brown said. “You heard me talk about making sure that our spirit didn’t take a hit . ... There’s no better player to help catapult that mindset than T.J.”
Buried on the late-season depth chart behind rookie Markelle Fultz, the first overall pick in the draft, McConnell made his mark when given a chance. He scored a career-high 19 points, grabbed seven rebounds, distributed five assists and registered a plusminus rating of 18. Only Joel Embiid (plus-22) was better in that department.
It wasn’t a coincidence that the Sixers meshed seamlessly on offense when McConnell was on the floor. He and Embiid, who scored 15 points and grabbed 13 boards, swung the ball and didn’t commit a turnover. Simmons had two. The Sixers finished with just eight turnovers compared to 15 for the Celtics.
With McConnell setting the tone, the Sixers led by 18 points in the fourth quarter, not the second quarter. They outscored the Celtics, 52-30, in the paint. Dario Saric was Dario Saric. With the low post cleared of Simmons, a chunk of Saric’s game and series-high 25 points came in the blocks for the Sixers.
McConnell was on the end of several telling plays in the second half. The first was a drive-and-dish to Embiid for a thundering twohanded dunk. The other was a drive down the boulevard, capped by a layup on the next possession to fight off a Celtics rally that had reduced the deficit to six.
The crowd of 20,936 and a few odd celebrities rocked the building. Much of that time was spent without Simmons on the floor.
When McConnell returned to the game with six minutes remaining, the crowd gave him a rousing ovation and chanted his name. The Sixers weren’t threatened the rest of the way.
“It was a pretty special moment,” McConnell said. “But I was just trying to do anything I could to get us a win. I think we have the best fans in the NBA. They’ve been here through the dark times and they’ve certainly been here on our rise. So, I just appreciate them. And I know we all do.”
At that point, the Celtics were too tired to make the extra passes that served them well in the first three games. They were caught flat-footed much of the evening. The lineup change with McConnell played a significant role in that.
“When your backs are to the wall, you have to do some desperate things,” Celtics pivot Al Horford said. “And that paid off for them tonight.”
Brown intimated he’d stick with McConnell and Simmons in the starting lineup for Game 5 at TD Garden. Coincidentally, that’s where Brown learned something about himself in Game 2. After stubbornly saying he’d stick with Simmons at the expense of McConnell, who sparked the Sixers in that contest, Brown concluded that T.J. had to get more minutes. What took him so long? “We know how Boston is playing, how Boston is guarding,” Saric said. “All guards try to drive downhill and it opened the space for T.J., and T.J. just took it. Making layups, he was focused on that. I talk to him all the time, ‘You need to be ready. One game you need to show up and be ready for that.’ That was this game. But I believe he can repeat this in the next game.”
It was an electric night at the Center, from Jimmy Rollins ringing the bell to fire the crowd up to Dikembe Mutombo courtside and Carson Wentz in a super box.
McConnell realized he’d start after speaking to assistant coach Lloyd Pierce around 2 p.m.
“He switched my mindset around,” McConnell. “So, I just switched my mindset around knowing I’d probably play more minutes.”
McConnell played a season-high 39 minutes. Table the Lebron James talk. Whatever it takes to play another day.
“Just one game at a time,” McConnell said. “We can’t look ahead and try to do too much. Even one possession at a time. We’ve got to take it one possession at a time each game and fight like it’s our last because quite possibly could be our last game. We really have nothing to lose. We just have to go out and fight and execute.”