TD Garden was supposed to host a celebration on Tuesday night. Instead the Boston Celtics watched a Joel Embiid third-quarter run, a fourth quarter where Jayson Tatum took just two field goal attempts, and the Philadelphia 76ers leave with a Game 5 win that pushes the No. 7 seed within a victory of stunning the No. 2 seed.
The series is hanging on Game 6 in Philadelphia, and the Celtics' explanations afterwards were blunt rather than panicked.
"They got hot from three," head coach Joe Mazzulla said. "We left Grimes a couple times while George hit one. Maxey hit another one there. Edgecombe hit one. So they got hot from three there, which is they're a dangerous team when they do that. But either way, we just have to work to get stops and execute the other end."
Tatum, who finished a quiet game with one of the most uncharacteristic stretches of his postseason career, opened with credit for Philadelphia.
"First of all, give them credit. They played well," Tatum said. "A few looks that we got that we felt good about that we just didn't make. And sometimes that happens, but it's just tough. When you're not scoring at the rate you want to, it puts a lot of pressure on your defence, and they made some plays on that end."
The defining stretch came late in the third when Boston led by 13 and never quite reset. Asked whether the Celtics relaxed at that point, Tatum agreed without flinching.
"Yeah, I agree with that. That was a critical point of the game and some plays that we just wish we could have back in that third quarter when we had the lead," he said.
The offensive numbers told the rest of the story. Tatum took only two shots in the fourth, and Mazzulla pushed back when asked whether his star had hesitated to attack Embiid in the paint.
"At the end of the day, you're just looking for the best shot in every possession," Mazzulla said. "If the guys felt like they could have laid it in, I thought they did. JT got a layup on them. I thought JB drew a foul there on him and we had some great kickouts. So we'll take a look at it, but you trust the guys to just make the right play."
Mazzulla, who has now had several closeout nights at home this postseason go past him, said the Celtics will run the same process they always run.
"Tomorrow we'll look at the possessions that we have to get better at," he said. "There was a lot of good there. As I said, it was 13 with 10 to go, and we can learn how we got to that point and then we can learn how to be better in those situations. So it's the same process. Look at those possessions and get better, get ready for the next one."
For Tatum, the body-language conversation cut deeper. Asked how the Celtics hang in there when shots aren't falling, he leaned on the locker room.
"Just lean on each other. That's what you got teammates for. Each guy has to be out there to pick each other up and just kind of move on to the next play. When we're at our best we do that really well," Tatum said. Pressed on why that did not happen in this one, his answer was unusually candid: "I mean, there's a human element part of it, right? We're not perfect. After each game, a win or a loss, there's a lot of things that we look back on and talk about that we could be better at. And tonight's no different."
Embiid's interior presence is the other piece the Celtics will have to absorb on the flight south. "Give him credit," Tatum said. "He played well. He put a lot of pressure on us, especially on the defensive end. We'll go back and watch the film and make some adjustments and be ready for Game 6."
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/sixers-celtics-game-5-tatum-mazzulla-embiid-maxey-stun-boston-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
