Preseason doesn't mean much, except when it does. Boston beat Philadelphia 125-120 in overtime on Friday with a lineup that had no business staying competitive, and the excuses started fast: it's preseason, nobody cares, check back in April. That holds up when the team losing didn't care either. It doesn't hold up here, because Philadelphia played to win.
Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey and LeBron James all logged real minutes, somewhere between 29 and 31 apiece. Embiid put up 27 points. Brown scored 20. Maxey added 22. James ran the floor for eight points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Four established players treated a Friday night preseason finale like it mattered, and lost anyway to a Boston roster built around the end of the bench.
Milos Uzan hit the shot that sealed it in overtime. Dillon Mitchell hit a three late in the extra period that mattered just as much. Chris Cenac Jr. started and put up a real stat line. A month ago, casual fans couldn't have picked any of these names out of a lineup. Boston's actual stars weren't on the floor, and the team still found a way to grind out a win on the road against a team that brought its real players.
This is one preseason game, the standings reset to zero in a couple weeks, and nobody's hanging a banner for finishing the exhibition slate unbeaten. Fine. That explains why the result doesn't carry playoff weight. It doesn't explain how it happened. A healthy, motivated group of recognizable NBA players lost to guys fighting for a roster spot, and effort wasn't the problem on Philadelphia's side. Something in that locker room let a group of fringe players push them into overtime and finish the job.
Credit Boston's player development staff for finding contributors nobody else wanted. Finding useful NBA players at the bottom of a roster is a real skill, and it showed up on the floor Friday. Philadelphia put its actual rotation out there, against a Celtics group this thin, and still couldn't close it out. That's a program with a depth problem it can't preseason its way out of, and nobody wearing a Sixers jersey Friday night should get to shrug this one off as meaningless.
