Mazzulla ‘grateful’ to meet Red Sox’ Cora
PHILADELPHIA — With Games 3 and 4 of the Celtics’ Eastern Conference semifinal against the 76ers coinciding with a three-game Red Sox series against the Phillies, the streets were filled with Boston fans over the weekend.
The fortuitous schedule also gave Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla an opportunity to meet with Red Sox manager Alex Cora prior to Saturday’s baseball game.
“I was grateful,” Mazzulla said Sunday, prior to the Celtics’ 116-115 overtime loss. “I’ve never had a chance to meet him and I know he’s been in this position as a player and as a coach. So he’s managed success and it was great to just spend some time with him and just pick his brain on some of the stuff that was important to him through his runs and kind of what he’s doing now.
“It’s great to have that resource.”
Embiid a going concern
In Game 3, the Celtics threw plenty of different defenses at 76ers center Joel Embiid and often deployed their smaller players in the initial wave in the post. Embiid seemed more prepared for those defenses in Game 4. On one first-quarter catch Sunday for example, he attacked immediately after seeing Marcus Smart on him and converted an easy 3-point play.
Embiid (34 points, 13 rebounds in 46 minutes) did appear to tire by game’s end. After going 7 for 12 in the first half, he was just 4 for 14 in the second half and overtime, with Al Horford bothering him and coming up with several key blocks.
“It’s a challenge, because he looks to draw fouls constantly,” Horford said of Embiid. “So it’s definitely — the league is different, it keeps changing. The way that it was three years ago, five years ago, it’s different. So as a defender you have to adjust and you have to go with things and you probably can’t be as aggressive as you want to be, and that’s part of the game. But for me it’s just continuing to find ways that I can help our team win.”
Get Brown the ball
Jaylen Brown saved the Celtics from a sleepy start. With his teammates going just 1 for 10 with three turnovers, Brown hit 5 of 6 shots to help the Celtics to a 16-15 lead.
But he attempted just 10 more shots over the rest of the game, hitting five. It’s the second time in this series that a big start by Brown (23 points) was followed by a quieter end.
“I guess I’ve got to demand the ball a little bit more,” he said. “I thought good things happened when I had it in my hands, but I thought our offense was OK. I thought we chipped away, we made big time shots, we got great looks all game long, and we just came up short in the end.”