76ers coach gives blunt assessment from Celtics Game 1 loss

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76ers coach gives blunt assessment from Celtics Game 1 loss

Souichi Terada · MassLive

Sun, Apr 19, 2026 ·

3 min read

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BOSTON — The Celtics blitzed the 76ers right from tipoff. It was all C’s in the first quarter, outscoring the Sixers by 15 points in the first quarter to grab an early lead. Then the Celtics never let the visitors mount a real comeback attempt. The end result was a 123-91 C’s victory Sunday to take the 1-0 series lead in the first-round series.

Sixers coach Nick Nurse gave a blunt assessment when it came to their play following the blowout loss. The Celtics set a franchise record with their 32-point win , which was their largest margin of victory in a playoff opener.

“The first quarter obviously was moving past us pretty quick and we just didn’t do enough at either end to get in to settle into the game,” Nurse said. “I thought from the second quarter to about midway through the third, we finally got ourselves underneath us a little bit and played pretty good basketball. But the minutes around that were absolutely unacceptable.”

The Sixers’ shot-making was off all night, shooting just 4-for-23 (17.4%) on their 3-pointers. That put pressure on their defense, which wasn’t able to generate enough stops against the Celtics. While the Sixers were relatively even in the second quarter, the damage was done as they were unable to climb out of the hole.

There was an opportunity for the 76ers to climb their way back into the game midway through the third quarter. They cut the C’s lead down to 15 points and had some momentum. Boston’s offense hit a snag, putting up back-to-back possessions where it used the entire shot clock and had to put up a tough, contested look.

The Sixers got a potential transition opportunity out of the second possession, giving them a chance to cut into the C’s lead further. But instead, Jaylen Brown got the steal and hit a 3-pointer seconds later. After a Nikola Vucevic 3-pointer on the next C’s possession, Boston’s lead swelled back up to 21 points. That stretch all but extinguished any chance the Sixers could get back into the game.

“We certainly can’t give up that much in transition,” Nurse said. “That’s a big one. We got to take care of the ball better, too many turnovers that also were live-ball that led to some of that transition. I think we’ve got to generate more 3s against this team. We got to generate them and we got to take them. And obviously we’re going to have to make some, which I’m sure we will. Probably those three things.”

The silver lining for the Sixers is that, despite the lopsided score, Sunday’s game counts for just one in the best-of-seven series. They’re still down 1-0, but a blowout loss doesn’t mean they’re down multiple games. So Philadelphia will look to clean up some of the areas Nurse pointed out.

“We think we had some pretty good strong drives,” Nurse said. “We took some of the hits; we drew some fouls. But in this atmosphere, you got to be able to finish those. When you’ve made the right play to get it right to the front of the rim or even just to the side, and you have to move it a little bit or some of that stuff, we got to finish them.”

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