Kemba Walker led all scorers with 32 points on Sunday afternoon, as the Boston Celtics used a late third quarter run to put away the Philadelphia 76ers 110-106 in game four of an Eastern Conference First Round series at the Walt Disney World Resort. Boston wins the best of seven 4-0, and will face the Toronto Raptors in the second round after Toronto also swept their series with Brooklyn.
Boston took their first lead about three minutes into action, before Philadelphia would rally with a 15-5 run in the final 5:30 of the first quarter to take a 32-27 advantage. The second quarter saw both teams having a lead, with the 76ers holding a slight one point margin 58-57 at the break. The Celtics would fight back and go up five in the third, but the 76ers had the answer tying it back up with 3:20 to go on a Alex Burks basket. Boston then took over scoring the final 12 points of the period, spurred by a three-pointer by Grant Williams, and five points from Jayson Tatum including a long three-pointer with 2.4 seconds left to make it 89-77 headed for the fourth. The green made it a 14-0 run on an Enes Kanter put back to start the fourth. The Celts would take as much as a 17 point lead and couldn’t be caught. The 76ers did score 12 of the final 14 points in the final two minutes, but it was too little too late as the sixth seed fell in four straight games to have their season ended.
Walker added four rebounds, four assists, and a steal in the win. Tatum again stepped up big with 28 points, 15 rebounds, four assists, two blocks, and a steal. Jaylen Brown had 16 points and five rebounds, while Daniel Theis had 15 points and four boards. Joel Embiid did all he could do to keep Philadelphia alive in the loss, with 30 points, 10 rebounds, three steals, and two blocks. Tobias Harris added 20, while Josh Richardson and Shake Milton chipped in 14 points a piece. The 76ers end their season with a record of 47-38, losing for the first time in an opening round since being outsted in five games by Miami back in the 2010-11 season. Boston (57-27), the three seed, will now face two seed Toronto (64-20) in a best of seven that begins on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The teams have been two of the hottest since the restart, with the Celtics going 9-3 and the Raptors 11-1. The lone Toronto loss was a 122-100 setback to Boston back on August 7, with the green also taking two of the previous three meetings in the regular season.
Brad Marchand had a game winning third period goal and also added an assist Sunday night, as the Boston Bruins won game one of a second round Eastern Conference series 3-2 over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Boston takes a 1-0 lead in the best of seven.
Charlie Coyle started things late in the first period, deflecting a Brandon Carlo shot from the point past Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevsky at 18:52 to make it 1-0 after the opening 20 minutes. It was the third of the playoffs for Coyle. David Pastrnak got his second at 4:34 of the middle period on the powerplay to make it 2-0. Pastrnak took a perfect cross ice feed from David Krejci near the top of the right faceoff circle, one timing it in from the left circle. Marchands game winnner in the third came on some nice work forechecking by the Bruins. Patrice Bergeron made a steal to the right of Vasilevsky, got it Pastrnak to the right of the net, and Pastrnak spun a perfect tape to tape pass behind his back to Marchand all alone to the left of the goalie who tapped it in at 1:17 to extend to 3-0. The Lightning struck with goals from Victor Hedman at 8:50 and 18:46, but simply ran out of time as Boston held on for the victory.
Pastrnak also added a goal and an assist in the win, and Jaroslav Halak continued his good play stepping in for a departed Tuuka Rask making 35 saves and improving his 2020 playoff record to 4-0. Hedman had the two goals to lead Tampa, and Vasilevskiy made 28 saves in the loss. The Bruins went 1-3 on the poweplay, while the Lightning were 0-3. Boston has now won 5 of their last 6 games after an 0-3 record in the round robin tournament that kicked off the NHL restart. Game two faces off at 7 p.m. Tuesday night.
