Boston Celtics @ Philadelphia 76ers
Sunday, April 26, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET
Xfinity Mobile Arena, Philadelphia, PA | Game ID: 42500114
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final
PHI 18 20 36 22 96BOS 34 22 39 33 128
ESPN UpdateESPN Update
Celtics spoil Embiid's return to action after appendectomy, beat 76ers to take 3-1 series lead
PHILADELPHIA -- — Payton Pritchard made six of Boston’s 24 3-pointers and scored 32 points and Jayson Tatum had 30 points and 11 assists to help the Boston Celtics spoil Joel Embiid’s return from an appendectomy and beat the Philadelphia 76ers 128-96 on Sunday night for a 3-1 lead in their first-round playoff series.
Game 5 is Tuesday night in Boston.
“It's going to have to be a big pick-up mentally,” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said.
Jaylen Brown scored 20 points for the Celtics, who thumped the Sixers by 32 points for the second time in the series. The Celtics outrebounded the Sixers 51-30.
Embiid scored 26 points in 34 minutes just 17 days after having an appendectomy . Embiid wasted little time scoring in his first game since April 6. The two-time NBA scoring champion sank two free throws for the Sixers’ first points of the game, added a monster two-handed jam and scored the team’s first eight points.
Embiid withered after the fast start and missed seven straight shots before he converted a three-point play in the third quarter. That cut the Sixers' deficit to 23.
The Celtics hardly needed much production from Brown or Tatum — they combined for 50 points in a Game 3 win and only 13 in the first half of Game 4 — and used a whopping 14-rebound edge in the first half that sparked a 13-0 shutout in second-chance points to build a 21-point lead.
All-Star guard Tyrese Maxey took a backseat to Embiid and took only three shots in the first half. He scored 22 points for the Sixers.
“That can't happen," Maxey said of the slow start. “That's on me. That's just unacceptable by me. I was playing within the flow of the game. It kind of happened that way. It wasn't meant to happen that way.”
Maxey and the Sixers largely tried to get Embiid rolling early.
Embiid had an appendectomy in Houston on April 9 after Philadelphia’s star big man was stricken with appendicitis overnight. He returned to the court Sunday wearing a protective brace around his midsection and was cleared to play about 40 minutes before the scheduled tipoff.
“What am I going to do? Cry about it?” Embiid said of his latest postseason malady.
Whatever emotional lift he provided lasted only minutes into the first quarter.
Pritchard buried a long 3 on one leg to end the first quarter and give Boston a 34-18 lead.
“He’s just a guy that finds the game. He dictates the pace for us,” Celtics coach Joe Mazulla said. "He did a good job of that for himself and others tonight. When we’re at our best, he’s aggressive.”
Embiid shot 3 of 5 in the first quarter while the rest of the Sixers missed 10 of 13 shots.
There were some questions about how Tatum’s return in early March from the ruptured Achilles tendon he suffered in the playoffs last May would affect the flow of a group that had learned to adjust and thrive without the six-time All-Star.
Instead, Tatum has reacclimated himself in short order and the Celtics are dominating like a team that feels as though the East will go through Boston.
Embiid's gutsy return mattered little, and now the Celtics can clinch the series at home and wait for the winner of the Atlanta Hawks - New York Knicks series.
Who is who
the initials in the Players column
BOSBS B. Scheierman
DW D. White
GO Gonzalez
HG H. González
JB J. Brown
JT J. Tatum
JW J. Walsh
LG L. Garza
MS M. Shulga
NQ N. Queta
NV N. Vučević
PP P. Pritchard
RH R. Harper Jr.
SH S. Hauser
VU Vucevic
PHIAB A. Bona
AD A. Drummond
DB D. Barlow
DT D. Terry
JE J. Edwards
JE J. Embiid
JW J. Walker
KO K. Oubre Jr.
PG P. George
QG Q. Grimes
TM T. Maxey
TW T. Watford
VE V. Edgecombe
BOS/PHI the team itself, not a player
-- the feed named nobody
What
What happened
the codes in the Events column
M2 / M3 made 2 / made 3
X2 / X3 missed 2 / missed 3
FT / X1 free throw made / missed
AST assist
OR / DR offensive / defensive rebound
STL steal
BLK block
TO turnover
FL foul
OF offensive foul — ends the possession
VIOL violation
JUMP jump ball
TM timeout
IR instant replay
HE heave at the buzzer, filed to the team
Where
Where a shot came from
the middle field of M3.LW.25
RM at the rim inside 4 ft
RC right corner
RW right wing
SO straight on
LW left wing
LC left corner
M3.LW.25 made 3, left wing, 25 ft
X2.RM.01 missed 2, at the rim, 1 ft
When
When it happened
the Offset column
one number per event, in the Events order:
whole seconds from the start of the
possession to that event
Events FL X3.RC.23 OR M2.RM.01
Offset 0 18 22 24
the foul opens the possession at 0s;
the putback ends it at 24s, which is
the possession's own Dur