Instant observations: Sixers stars dominate Celtics in Game 6

You couldn’t shake the feeling that the Sixers were leaving this game up for grabs when they didn’t really have to. They couldn’t figure out the right pace, running through stop signs and staring shellshocked at green lights, running up and down and back and forth without being able to create much separation. The good news is that when it comes down to it, they have the Embiid/Maxey two-man game to lean on, and more specifically, they had Maxey to carry them on offense for most of Thursday night.

There is an instinct to dismiss anything other than a Joel Embiid deep catch as an act of treachery from Nick Nurse, and when the big man is shooting as he has on long jumpers in this series, I understand why many feel that way. The big guy has not been able to find his shooting boots yet, missing shots and free throws that are automatic when he is in a groove. But Philadelphia’s offense in the first quarter was clearly designed to try to get other guys going, even if it often led to an Embiid jumper late in the shot clock. With Maxey struggling to get going from deep throughout this series, the best thing you can do for him is to keep handing him open looks and hope he can pull out of it.

Maxey came out guns blazing in this one, knocking down his first two threes and ready to assault the Celtics as they strayed from him on the perimeter. Once he established himself as a threat to pull up and splash, Boston was grasping at air trying to prevent him from getting to the rim, failing miserably except for a few rare occasions. He has done an outstanding job of using the rim as a shield throughout this series, hitting some gnarly reverse layups at the rim after speeding past Queta and Vucevic.

Even without Embiid on the floor, it was Maxey who largely starred as the Sixers were finally able to put some padding in the lead midway through the second quarter. Andre Drummond played some of his best and most important minutes of the series, setting firm screens and offering a safe set of hands as Maxey snaked, slipped, and weaved through traffic to hunt clean looks at the basket.

The beauty of this game is that the Sixers got a version of Embiid that I think a lot of fans have been hoping for if he could get to the playoffs healthy. His shot wasn’t falling for a lot of the night, but he did a great job of quarterbacking the Sixers out of the post, absorbing pressure and firing passes around the floor during the second-half stretch that killed off Boston. His defensive mobility has been much better than expected after a layoff, with Embiid navigating traffic with nimble feet around the rim while constantly hitting bodies on the glass.

Anything is in play on Saturday. This doesn’t feel like a talent or coaching mismatch. And having won 2/3 in Boston to open the series, the Sixers will head to the Celtics’ home arena as confident as a No. 7 seed could be for a seventh game. They goaded Joe Mazzulla into pulling his starters with over 10 minutes to play on Thursday night, his team so thoroughly beaten that all they could do was hope for a miracle. Divine intervention denied.

The wing special

I’ve said it several times during this series, but it’s worth repeating: Paul George doesn’t ever deserve to be compared to Tobias Harris again if you’re watching what he’s doing in this series. Harris has never played even close to this well against a team of this caliber. George has been basically a perfect third option playing alongside Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid, a lineup stabilizer when either sits and an aggressive shooter/scorer when moments have presented themselves. Oh, and he’s also spending time invading the airspace of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, doing a damn good job to keep much younger men from destroying Philadelphia.

George has often been the guy in this series who either pushes a small lead into a bigger one or pulls the Sixers out in front in a back-and-forth game. He was the man who hit big-time shots to open the fourth quarter in Game 5, and with the Sixers struggling to pull away from Boston in the third, he began padding the lead with a couple of huge trail threes on the break, burying the Celtics for trying to cheat toward the rim in transition. His confidence is abundant right now, as evidenced by the ridiculous sidestep three he hit over Jayson Tatum from the left corner late in the first half.

It has been an absolute delight watching a real mismatch attacker go to work during George’s first playoff series in Philadelphia. Hand him Sam Hauser on an island, and he’s rocking him to sleep before going right over the top of him. Weirdly, the one guy who has tricked him into some bad possessions is Pritchard, but I think George has overthought it a bit on those and should just get back into the midrange bag instead of passing. It’s just hard to find many complaints about his performance in this series, because he has been everything they could have hoped for when they signed him two summers ago.

At the other wing spot, I’ve never ridden the roller coaster with one player in one game the way I did with Kelly Oubre on Thursday night. It’s almost unfathomable how bad his hands were in this game, with Oubre fumbling away several critical possessions that might have changed the shape of the game had he simply held onto the ball. But he finally woke up on offense after a miserable start to this series, hitting a huge wing three and attacking Jaylen Brown on a slick midrange move. That seemed to liven him up.

No one can question what he has brought to the table on defense, though. The loudest moment of the season in South Philly came early in the third quarter during a hellacious two-way sequence for the good guys. Joel Embiid hit Kelly Oubre with a behind-the-back pass out of the post, Oubre slamming it for two to amp up the crowd level. Back on the other end, it was Oubre flying in for a block of Jaylen Brown, before Paul George hit VJ Edgecombe in traffic with a small runway, and the rookie simply started flying.

Oubre’s ability to dig in against Brown and (mostly) avoid fouling him has been a critical part of slowing the Celtics down in Philadelphia’s three wins, and they will need another big Oubre performance in Boston on Saturday if they want to close this out.

Other notes

— Dare I say that the Celtics look a bit tight in this moment, a “house money” season suddenly turning into a pressure-packed series in the first round? The moment that Jayson Tatum came back and looked good enough to contribute to a long playoff run was the moment that they no longer had real excuses to fade out early in the playoffs.

The Boston Celtics were clearly ready to see deep drop coverage from Joel Embiid and the Sixers after Philly used it to win Game 5. The first Boston possession of the game was a Sam Hauser missed three off the dribble, a relative rarity for their wing shooter. That seemed like a clear message from the Celtics to Nick Nurse, and that if they wanted to keep Embiid living around the paint, there would be a cost.

I suppose the best thing you could say about the Sixers is that they’ve made the Celtics adapt to them. Mazzulla has also gone away from the deep rotation that has powered Boston’s surprise year, at least until they put a scare in the Sixers after he pulled all the starters early in the fourth.