Celtics crush Sixers 144-106 in first preseason matchup

Payton Pritchard’s 25 points and Jayson Tatum’s 23 led the Boston Celtics to a dominant 144-106 home win over the Jaylen Brown-less Philadelphia 76ers in the C’s second preseason game of the 2026-27 season.

The game provided first glimpses of Paul George and Mitchell Robinson playing in green, and marked Derrick White, Jayson Tatum, Neemias Queta, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser’s return to action. All seven sat out of Thursday’s preseason opener against Cleveland.

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Boston’s starters included White, Jordan Walsh, Tatum, George, and Robinson. Hauser, Queta, and Pritchard came off the bench for their first minutes of the year.

Ron Harper Jr. was out with right shoulder soreness and Devin Carter, who starred in the game against Cleveland, was out with an illness.

The Sixers deployed a starting lineup of Tyrese Maxey, V.J. Edgecombe, Justin Edwards, Dean Wade, and Jabari Walker. Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope were inactive for Philly.

The Celtics’ starters looked clunky in their first minutes together, and couldn’t get much going early. Tatum and George both missed a couple midrange shot attempts and Tatum missed Robinson on an early alley-oop attempt. It was Edgecombe who broke the ice with an and-1 reverse layup, and Philly took an early 8-0 lead while Boston was still back-rimming every shot it took.

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Tatum was passing well early, regardless of all the missed shots. He got it to White and Walsh for a couple open three-point attempts, but they bricked both. Robinson finally put the C’s on the scoreboard with a putback dunk, and White scored Boston’s second bucket of the game. George clunked another midrange shot attempt, but got fouled and hit 1 of 2 free throws for his first points as a Celtic.

Boston didn’t get it going until about halfway through the first quarter, when shots started falling. Queta and Hauser were the first substitutions of the game and injected some life into the offense, but JT also kicked into gear. He got a dunk off a George steal for his first points of the game, made a nice pass to a slashing Queta for an easy bucket, and hit a couple…

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Publish date : 2026-10-11 02:51:00

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