NBA Playoff Picks 4/19 – Sixers @ Celtics

Opening weekend of the NBA Playoffs continues this afternoon with Game One of a best-of-seven Eastern Conference series as the seventh-seeded Philadelphia 76ers (45-37 in the regular season) traveling to face the second-seeded Boston Celtics (56-26 in the regular season) at TD Garden on ABC.

The long-time, heated rivals faced each other four times during the regular season with each team winning twice. The first three matchups between the 76ers and Celtics were decided by two points or less with the 76ers winning two of those contests — 117-116 at Boston on opening night and 102-100 at home on Nov. 11. Boston crushed Philadelphia 114-98 at home when the teams last met on March 1. Boston has won 8 of the last 11 against Philadelphia dating back to November 2023.

Philadelphia secured the seventh seed after knocking off eighth-seeded Orlando 109-97 in the opening round of the Play-In Tournament on April 15.

Boston is a 12.5-point favorite and the total is 213.5.

For the series, Boston is also a significant favorite at -800 to win it. Philadelphia is at +550 to win.

This will be the 23rd playoff matchup (an NBA record) between Philadelphia and Boston. They last met three years ago in the 2023 Eastern Conference Semifinals (2nd round) with the second-seeded Celtics outlasting the third-seeded 76ers 4-3.

Other notable playoff occurrences include back-to-back thrilling seven-game series in the 1981 and 1982 Eastern Conference Finals where third-seeded Philadelphia went up 3-1 on top-seeded Boston both years. Boston came back to stun Philadelphia 4-3 in 1981. The 76ers got revenge in 1982 as they fended off Boston’s 3-1 comeback attempt by winning Game 7 at venerable Boston Garden.

The overwhelming majority of NBA fans who were watching or are aware of early-2000’s basketball recall Hall of Famer Allen Iverson’s infamous “We Talkin’ Bout Practice” rant, but many may not know it came after a 120-87 win-or-go home Game 5 loss at Boston in a 2002 first-round series.

A bevy of injuries to star players (Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Paul George) derailed the 2024-25 season for the Philadelphia 76ers, dropping their record to a woeful 24-58 — a 23-game decrease from the previous season. Philadelphia entered the 2025-26 looking to regroup and regain their spot amongst the upper-tier Eastern Conference teams.

With the anticipation of having a healthy Big Three of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, along with highly-regarded rookie VJ Edgecombe — who the 76ers drafted third overall in the 2025 NBA draft out of Baylor — the Philadelphia 76ers were expecting a bounce back season in 2026.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan for the 76ers as they matched last year’s win total on Jan. 19 after a 113-104 victory over Indiana improved their record to 24-19. Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George were relatively healthy and playing very well, and VJ Edgecombe was one of the top performing rookies in the NBA.

Things took a slight turn for the worse for Philadelphia beginning in February when Paul George was given a 25-game suspension for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy on Jan 31. and Joel Embiid suffered a right oblique (midsection) injury on Feb. 26 that kept him out for about a month. George and Embiid both returned to the lineup on March 25, which led to four wins in five games and the 76ers improving to a season-best 9 games over .500 at 43-34 on April 3.

Unfortunately, Philadelphia was dealt a devastating blow on April 9 when it was announced that Joel Embiid was diagnosed with appendicitis and needed surgery immediately. Embiid has not played since, but the 76ers are hopeful that he can return for Game 3. Embiid participated in just 38 games this season, but he was producing at an elite level (26.9 ppg, 7.7 rebs, 1.2 blks, 1.4 threes, 48.9% from 2) when he played.

After being limited to a career-low 52 games last year due to a sprained pinky, superstar guard Tyrese Maxey registered a stellar season this year. The 25-year-old, two-time All-Star averaged career-highs in points (28.3), assists (6.6), rebounds (4.1) and tied a career-high in threes per game (3.1) across 70 contests. Maxey will be tasked with carrying a bigger scoring load with Embiid out, and he should be up for that responsibility considering he averaged 29.8 ppg in a first-round series that went six games against the Knicks two years ago.

When Jayson Tatum tore his right Achilles tendon in Game 4 of last season’s Eastern Conference Semifinal loss to the New York Knicks — that put Celtics down 3-1 in the series — it was believed to be a catastrophic blow for Boston for two reasons. First, Boston’s chances of repeating as NBA champs were over as the Knicks went on to eliminate them 4-2. Second, it was also feared that Tatum could miss the entire 2025-26 season.

The outlook for the 2025-26 season was subdued due the expectation that six-time All-Star Jayson Tatum was expected to miss all or most of the regular season. Boston was projected to win 45 games this year, which is a substantial drop from the 61 wins they’ve averaged over the past 3 seasons. But Boston shocked many NBA observers by remaining one of the NBA’s top teams without its superstar Tatum.

Led by the exceptional play of Jaylen Brown, Boston sported an impressive 41-20 record on March 2, which was the second-best record in the East and fourth-best record in the NBA at the time. Boston’s unexpected success fueled speculation that Jayson Tatum could return during the regular season. Tatum posting videos of his rehab on social media and participating in 5-on-5 practices increased the speculation that his return was imminent, despite the Celtics and Tatum being non-committal about his status.

But on March 6, all of the speculation came to an end when Jayson Tatum made his highly-anticipated return in a nationally-televised home game against the Dallas Mavericks. Tatum’s regular season debut saw him finish with 15 points (6-16 FG, 3-8 3Pt), 12 rebounds, 7 assists and a steal across 27 minutes in a 120-100 victory over Dallas. Since returning, Tatum averaged 21.8 points, 10 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.4 steals and 2.9 threes per game in 16 starts. He’s close to resembling his All-NBA form. The Celtics have gone 13-4 with Tatum back.

Jaylen Brown concluded the season averaging career-highs of 28.7 points and 5.1 assists, along with 6.9 rebounds, 2 threes and 1 steal per game on 47.7 percent shooting from the floor and 34.7 percent shooting from long distance in 71 contests. Brown’s name was even bandied about for MVP talk by several outlets/pundits due to his career-high numbers and Boston remaining amongst the NBA’s elite without Jayson Tatum.

With Jayson Tatum close to being in peak form, alongside a deep and talented team, Boston is now the favorite (-145) to win the Eastern Conference. Over the past four seasons, this core group of Celtics players have won an NBA title (2024), been to 2 NBA Finals (2022 and 2024) and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals (2023). They have a playoff/championship pedigree that is unmatched by any team in the Eastern Conference. We’ll see how far they can go in the postseason.

With Jayson Tatum back and resembling his All-NBA form, I don’t think Boston will have a problem in Game 1 or in the series with Philadelphia. I expect an easy win in Game 1, Lay the big number and take the Celtics this afternoon!