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In Saturday’s Brotherhood Playoff Action, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics were eliminated by the Philadelphia 76ers, 109-100. Tatum was listed as questionable earlier, but was ruled out due to stiffness in his left knee.

Philadelphia will go on to play the New York Knicks. You’ll recall that Tatum suffered his Achilles injury in last year’s playoffs against the Knicks, so he’ll miss the chance to close that circle.

On Sunday, Paolo Banchero and Wendell Carter will lead the Orlando Magic into Game 7 against the Detroit Pistons. In the second game, RJ Barrett and the Toronto Raptors will take on Tyrese Proctor and the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 7 of that series. Brandon Ingram is listed as questionable with heel inflammation.

• Stubborn Joe Mazzulla and his Jayson Tatum-less, three-obsessed Celtics got the fate they deserved in Game 7
• 76ers complete comeback against Jayson Tatum-less Celtics in Game 7, setting up clash with Knicks
• Celtics lose Game 7 to Sixers without Jayson Tatum after late rally falls short
• 76ers up next for Knicks in playoffs after surviving Jayson Tatum-less Celtics in Game 7 thriller
• Jayson Tatum shares candid moment with Joel Embiid after Celtics’ Game 7 elimination
• What’s next for Jayson Tatum? How Celtics superstar injuries make future feel uncertain
• Joe Mazzulla explains reasoning behind Jayson Tatum being ruled out for Game 7
• The Orlando Tragic got punked in Game 6
• Paolo Banchero Pulled Up To Game 5 In Travis Scott’s Jordan 1 Low “Tropical Pink”
• Paolo Banchero: “Got caught on our heels” as Magic lose 24-point lead to Pistons
• Raptors’ RJ Barrett Hits Rim-Bouncing Miracle Shot In Cavs Series & Even LeBron James Is Impressed
• LeBron James thanked RJ Barrett for giving him extra rest and time to golf
• ‘Crazy, psychic, hold up, that might go in’: Oral history of Raptors’ RJ Barrett miracle shot
• New camera angle shows how close RJ Barrett’s bounce game-winning 3-pointer was to not counting for Raptors vs. Cavs
• Raptors’ Brandon Ingram gets crucial injury update for Game 7 vs. Cavs
• Raptors’ Brandon Ingram injury creates a Game 7 dilemma

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‘We never wavered': Sixers weren't wrong to believe in brilliant comeback against Celtics  originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

 The Sixers of the Joel Embiid era know that playoff basketball can be harsh, even heartbreaking. 

All-world performances, bad bounces and the concept of potential are all irrelevant. You’re either the first team to win four games in a series or you’re not. 

To Embiid, this year’s Sixers team doesn’t feel like all the others.

“This is different,” Embiid said a few minutes into Sunday morning after the Sixers cemented a seven-game comeback series win over the Celtics. “The fight, it’s just there. … We’ve had good teams, but this feels pretty different. I think as long as we stay healthy and whatever game plan we have in the next series, we execute it, then we have a pretty good chance.”

Embiid had dominant stretches Saturday in a 34-point, 12-rebound, six-assist night, but Game 7 wasn’t remotely easy for the Sixers. 

The Celtics were without Jayson Tatum (left knee stiffness) and head coach Joe Mazzulla’s choice to throw three new players into his starting lineup backfired. Boston still had multiple open shots in the fourth quarter to fully erase an 18-point deficit. 

The Sixers needed more than a special Embiid outing to beat Boston in the playoffs for the first time since 1982 and advance to a second-round series vs. the Knicks. Tyrese Maxey capped a superstar’s series by posting 30 points on 11-for-18 shooting, 11 rebounds and seven assists. The NBA’s leader in minutes per game during the regular season, Maxey logged 45 in Game 7. 

“I just think his confidence level has gone up a huge (amount),” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said of Maxey. “For him to come down and say, ‘The game’s on the line and I’m going to put it away,’ I think that’s a big leap for him.”

Maxey scooted to the hoop for two crucial layups in the final minutes. He’s proven he can be great well past the point where an average player’s exhaustion would start to show.

“I work extremely hard in the summer, man. … I’ve worked extremely hard on my body,” Maxey said. “Shoutout to (performance coach) Al Reeser. He’s been on me since my rookie year. … The weight room is probably the biggest thing. I lift after pretty much every game, four to five times a week during the summer. I think that’s really helped me for moments like this.

“I don’t really feel tired right now, honestly. I don’t know how many minutes straight I played, but it happens. I’m just willing to do whatever it takes for us to win. I’m a competitor and I’m going to compete at the highest level on any given night.”

Maxey’s youthful backcourt mate is of the same mind.

VJ Edgecombe, at 20 years old, scored 23 points in Game 7 and shot 5 for 11 from three-point range. 

The rookie was also determined to prevent Derrick White from anything like his 19-point first half in the second. White only scored seven points after halftime. 

With Edgecombe defending him in the series, White shot 3 for 18, per NBA.com. Payton Pritchard went 4 for 17.  Those numbers don’t tell a complete defensive story, but they support the impression that Edgecombe’s effort, athleticism and intelligence all translated well to his first playoff series. 

“He obviously was great,” Nurse said. “They did a lot of helping off him, so he was going to get some opportunities (to shoot) … Most importantly, he came out of halftime saying, ‘I’ve got White and I’m going to do better on him,’ because White was cooking. … Those are the things that make a huge difference in games like this.”

For good reason, Paul George had his least productive game of a very strong two-way series. He chipped in 13 points and three rebounds with an illness that stopped him from sleeping the night prior. 

“We knew what we were up against,” George said of the Sixers’ comeback. “We just had to come out and do our part. We believe in the talent in this room. We believe in our abilities.”

On Tuesday night at TD Garden, the Sixers trailed by 13 points in the third quarter of Game 5.

Outside of Embiid’s gritty play post-appendectomy, there wasn’t much to suggest a historic comeback was in the cards. The Celtics had notched 32-point wins in both Game 1 and Game 4. 

“It’s hard to get drilled a couple of times and bounce back,” Nurse said. “But we go through some tough games during the year and we seem to bounce back almost every time. We get blown (out) by 40 at home, and then we go on the road and win four out of five or something. We seem to kind of have that in us. But (the playoffs) is different than that, so that’s a lesson we can learn. 

“And I do think that in these games and these series, you’re going to have really high highs and really low lows, man. … It’s just the way it is and you’ve got to be able to handle both of them. When you get a great win, who cares? The next game is going to be totally different. And when you get a bad loss, whether it’s by one or by 30, the score is what the score is in the series and you’ve just got to get ready to play the next one.”

The Sixers did so with confidence that could’ve been called irrational.

However, the final three games said they weren’t wrong to believe. Game 1 against the third-seeded Knicks is up next on Monday night.

“We’ve had this weird swag about us all year, this confidence and just the fact that we know who we can be and who we are,” Maxey said. “I said at media day that this team was going to fight every single night and we’ve done that. We’ve gotten beat a couple of times pretty bad. That just happens in this league, but we never wavered.  

“We always believed in each other. … This group really likes each other and really wants to see each other succeed.” 

‘We never wavered': Sixers weren't wrong to believe in brilliant comeback against Celtics  originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

 The Sixers of the Joel Embiid era know that playoff basketball can be harsh, even heartbreaking. 

All-world performances, bad bounces and the concept of potential are all irrelevant. You’re either the first team to win four games in a series or you’re not. 

To Embiid, this year’s Sixers team doesn’t feel like all the others.

“This is different,” Embiid said a few minutes into Sunday morning after the Sixers cemented a seven-game comeback series win over the Celtics. “The fight, it’s just there. … We’ve had good teams, but this feels pretty different. I think as long as we stay healthy and whatever game plan we have in the next series, we execute it, then we have a pretty good chance.”

Embiid had dominant stretches Saturday in a 34-point, 12-rebound, six-assist night, but Game 7 wasn’t remotely easy for the Sixers. 

The Celtics were without Jayson Tatum (left knee stiffness) and head coach Joe Mazzulla’s choice to throw three new players into his starting lineup backfired. Boston still had multiple open shots in the fourth quarter to fully erase an 18-point deficit. 

The Sixers needed more than a special Embiid outing to beat Boston in the playoffs for the first time since 1982 and advance to a second-round series vs. the Knicks. Tyrese Maxey capped a superstar’s series by posting 30 points on 11-for-18 shooting, 11 rebounds and seven assists. The NBA’s leader in minutes per game during the regular season, Maxey logged 45 in Game 7. 

“I just think his confidence level has gone up a huge (amount),” Sixers head coach Nick Nurse said of Maxey. “For him to come down and say, ‘The game’s on the line and I’m going to put it away,’ I think that’s a big leap for him.”

Maxey scooted to the hoop for two crucial layups in the final minutes. He’s proven he can be great well past the point where an average player’s exhaustion would start to show.

“I work extremely hard in the summer, man. … I’ve worked extremely hard on my body,” Maxey said. “Shoutout to (performance coach) Al Reeser. He’s been on me since my rookie year. … The weight room is probably the biggest thing. I lift after pretty much every game, four to five times a week during the summer. I think that’s really helped me for moments like this.

“I don’t really feel tired right now, honestly. I don’t know how many minutes straight I played, but it happens. I’m just willing to do whatever it takes for us to win. I’m a competitor and I’m going to compete at the highest level on any given night.”

Maxey’s youthful backcourt mate is of the same mind.

VJ Edgecombe, at 20 years old, scored 23 points in Game 7 and shot 5 for 11 from three-point range. 

The rookie was also determined to prevent Derrick White from anything like his 19-point first half in the second. White only scored seven points after halftime. 

With Edgecombe defending him in the series, White shot 3 for 18, per NBA.com. Payton Pritchard went 4 for 17.  Those numbers don’t tell a complete defensive story, but they support the impression that Edgecombe’s effort, athleticism and intelligence all translated well to his first playoff series. 

“He obviously was great,” Nurse said. “They did a lot of helping off him, so he was going to get some opportunities (to shoot) … Most importantly, he came out of halftime saying, ‘I’ve got White and I’m going to do better on him,’ because White was cooking. … Those are the things that make a huge difference in games like this.”

For good reason, Paul George had his least productive game of a very strong two-way series. He chipped in 13 points and three rebounds with an illness that stopped him from sleeping the night prior. 

“We knew what we were up against,” George said of the Sixers’ comeback. “We just had to come out and do our part. We believe in the talent in this room. We believe in our abilities.”

On Tuesday night at TD Garden, the Sixers trailed by 13 points in the third quarter of Game 5.

Outside of Embiid’s gritty play post-appendectomy, there wasn’t much to suggest a historic comeback was in the cards. The Celtics had notched 32-point wins in both Game 1 and Game 4. 

“It’s hard to get drilled a couple of times and bounce back,” Nurse said. “But we go through some tough games during the year and we seem to bounce back almost every time. We get blown (out) by 40 at home, and then we go on the road and win four out of five or something. We seem to kind of have that in us. But (the playoffs) is different than that, so that’s a lesson we can learn. 

“And I do think that in these games and these series, you’re going to have really high highs and really low lows, man. … It’s just the way it is and you’ve got to be able to handle both of them. When you get a great win, who cares? The next game is going to be totally different. And when you get a bad loss, whether it’s by one or by 30, the score is what the score is in the series and you’ve just got to get ready to play the next one.”

The Sixers did so with confidence that could’ve been called irrational.

However, the next three games said they weren’t wrong to believe. Game 1 against the third-seeded Knicks is up next on Monday night.

“We’ve had this weird swag about us all year, this confidence and just the fact that we know who we can be and who we are,” Maxey said. “I said at media day that this team was going to fight every single night and we’ve done that. We’ve gotten beat a couple of times pretty bad. That just happens in this league, but we never wavered.  

“We always believed in each other. … This group really likes each other and really wants to see each other succeed.” 

BOSTON — Minutes after Jayson Tatum was ruled out of Game 7, Joe Mazzulla walked into the media room wearing a black “Celtics Mindset” hoodie. He didn’t raise his voice or change his tone. “This season was about creating different identities,” he said. “We’ve done this before.”

It landed the way most of his comments do. Calm. Controlled. Almost separate from the moment.

Out on the floor, it didn’t feel that way.

By the time warmups started, there was a tension in the building that didn’t need volume to be obvious. You could see it in how people stood. Conversations shorter than usual. A few deep exhales mixed into the usual pregame buzz. When I was interviewing fans before Game 5, there were plenty of smiles and laughs. Not so much tonight. A Game 7 without one of your best players will do that to a fanbase.

Still, the players didn’t show it. Derrick White jogged out early, smiling, acknowledging the crowd. Payton Pritchard followed, more locked in than jovial, but that’s just PP. Sam Hauser stood along the sideline talking quietly with his family before heading back to the locker room, his dad giving him a firm pat on the back before saying goodbye.

For the Celtics, this was either going to be one more night of many more to come or the last one for a while.

I got to my press seat a few minutes before tip, right around the time the starting lineup was announced.

Ron Harper Jr.
Luka Garza.
Baylor Scheierman.
Derrick White.
Jaylen Brown.

Joe heard the calls for adjustments and went full Michael Keaton. “You wanna get nuts? Fine. Let’s get nuts.”

Sitting next to me was a reporter from Istanbul, there for Adem Bona, who moved to Turkey at age 13 to play professionally with Istanbul Basket. His name? Bozkurt. His third language? English. But I’d soon learn that he knew enough English, and enough about basketball, to spend the next two and a half hours becoming my temporary Game 7 nemesis.

We shook hands. The game started. I had no idea the stranger sitting next to me was going to help me cope with the end of the Celtics’ season.

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first quarter

The first few possessions didn’t do anything to settle the nerves.

Three early shots, all from deep, all missed. No paint touches or pressure on the defense. By the 9:36 mark, Boston still hadn’t scored, and Philadelphia looked right at home despite playing on the road.

As he had the past few games, Joel Embiid set the tone right away. When Boston stayed home, he stepped into midrange jumpers. When help came, he moved the ball cleanly. There was no rush to anything he was doing. By the end of the quarter, he had 10 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists, and it never felt like he had to force it.

Philadelphia shot 65 percent in the first quarter. They led 32-19, while Boston looked like a team still trying to figure out what the game was going to ask of them.

There was movement offensively, which was encouraging, but not a whole lot of purpose. Possessions drifted late into the clock. Too much dribbling without forcing a decision. On the other end, it was worse. Backdoor cuts. Easy entries. Not nearly enough resistance.

After Game 6, Jayson Tatum had pointed to the importance of getting stops. Through one quarter, the stops were few and far between.

Bozkurt didn’t need to say much early. He didn’t have to. Every Embiid jumper seemed to make his case for him. Every clean Sixers cut, every easy action, every possession where Philadelphia looked like the team with the clearer plan. He’d react with a small nod or a sound that somehow carried the same meaning as a 500-word column.

“Besides Shaq, Embiid has to be most dominant center ever, yes?” Bozkurt asked, or really, stated.

I was still at the point where I felt the need to be professional and courteous. The best I could muster was, “He’s pretty good!”

In any case, the Celtics looked uncomfortable from the jump, and the Sixers looked right at home in TD Garden.

Mazzulla started looking elsewhere for answers early. Pritchard checked in before the eight-minute mark. Queta followed. Walsh soon after. By the end of the quarter, Boston had already gone deep into its bench.

It didn’t fix the first quarter. But it sure did change the second.

The stretch that pulled everyone back in

The second quarter didn’t open clean either, but it felt different almost right away.

Hugo González, who had seen a total of six minutes of action in this series coming into Game 7, checked in and gave Boston something it had been desperately searching for: resistance. He picked up Maxey, fought through screens, and stayed attached far better than most Celtics players had fared through the series. It wasn’t perfect, but it made Philadelphia work a little more to get into what it wanted.

At the other end, Derrick White started to steady things.

A floater. A pull-up. Then a three that brought it back within two. On the next possession, he drew an offensive foul, and the building woke up with it.

Pritchard followed with a three, and suddenly Boston had its first lead of the night.

I couldn’t help it. I fist-pumped. Take that, Bozkurt.

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you I handled the whole night with the professional detachment expected from someone sitting in a media section. I did not. Not really. The first time I covered a game with credentials, which was Tatum’s return game and Cooper Flagg’s first one in Boston, I kept it together. Game 5 cracked me a little. Game 7 fully found the Celtics fan in me and dragged him out by the collar.

Part of that was the game. Part of that was the Garden. And part of it was Bozkurt.

He had come to cover Bona, but with Bona on the bench, he became an Embiid backer by necessity. Or maybe by choice. I’m still not sure. At one point in the second quarter, he leaned over, put two hands on my shoulders, and unprompted, said, “Two players with best whistle in league. SGA. Tatum.”

That’s what I was dealing with.

The Celtics, meanwhile, were finally giving me something to work with.

The ball was moving like it was early on in the season. Players cut with purpose instead of watching and waiting for their turn to go 1-on-1. Defensively, there were hands in passing lanes, bodies meeting drives earlier, and far more urgency across the floor. It wasn’t perfect, but it was connected and it was effort.

White carried the scoring, pouring in 19 by halftime. Jaylen Brown started to find his rhythm later in the quarter, while Queta was finally able to give them useful minutes without getting into foul trouble. Hugo was the biggest spark of the first half.

It felt like a montage of the regular season. One guy after another stepping forward as if to say, “Hey, remember me? Remember what I brought to this season?”

After Game 6, Brown had talked about playing faster, freer, with more trust in the group. For a stretch in the second quarter, that version showed up.

Still, the game never fully flipped. Embiid came back in and slowed everything down again. A rebound here. A trip to the line there. The lead stretched back out just enough to keep Boston chasing.

At halftime, it was 55-50. Given where it started, you had to take it.

Bozkurt looked up at the scoreboard, then over at me.

“Careful,” he said.

He was right. Annoyingly, painfully right.

The fight was real. So was the hole.

The third quarter was always going to say a lot about how the Celtics felt about this game. Boston had survived the first half. Now was the time to turn survival into control.

Queta opened with a smooth move over Embiid. A few possessions later, Maxey hit a three, then an effortless midrange jumper. The lead was back to double digits before fans had even settled back in their seats.

Keep it close became the quiet mantra for myself. Maybe not even quiet. I’m pretty sure I wrote it in my notes three or four times because I was trying to convince myself as much as anyone.

Brown gave them a moment out of a timeout, an and-one midrange that cut it back to eight. Then, Pritchard hit a three to make it a one-possession game. Jaylen took on the Embiid assignment and clapped in his face, prompting Embiid to talk that talk after making a shot. For a minute, it felt like something personal was brewing between the two of them.

That was the fun part.

The less fun part was that Philadelphia kept answering.

Embiid dragged the game back to his pace. Maxey found enough cracks. Paul George, who seemed to locate the Indiana version of himself for this series, hit a big three whenever Boston needed him not to.

At one point, the lead hit 15. Then 18.

Bozkurt put his arm around me again and said, “Sorry, brother.”

I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. What a ridiculous place to be. Sitting at the top of TD Garden, in a Game 7, next to a man from Istanbul who had become my emotional support rival. He was half consoling me, half enjoying the fact that Embiid was dismantling everything I held near and dear to my heart.

The Garden was still trying, despite Bozkurt’s Philadelphia’s best efforts. “Let’s Go Celtics” chants broke out during a timeout, but it didn’t sound like the usual Garden roar. Stunned is how I would describe it. Down 18 at home in Game 7 after leading the series 3-1, it felt appropriate.

After three quarters, it was 88-75.

Boston was shooting under 40 percent. Philadelphia was over 50. The Celtics needed a miracle.

For much of the fourth quarter, they made everyone believe in one.

The last time we got to believe

The fourth quarter started with Hauser hitting a three to cut it to ten. Derrick White followed with a steal and a layup to make it eight. The building responded immediately, like it had been waiting for permission to get to that yet-unreached decibel level.

By then, Bozkurt was on his feet too.

I looked over at him and nodded. No words needed.

Not done yet.

When Jaylen scored off a great pass from White to cut it to six, the Garden felt alive in a way that made the previous three quarters feel like they belonged to a different night. Nervous murmurs became excited murmurs. Everyone was standing. Bill Chisholm was on his feet courtside. Spider Kid was on the jumbotron. Save us, Spider Kid.

Queta finished through contact and turned to the crowd, yelling, and it was one of those moments where the game and the fandom stopped feeling like separate things.

Queta felt the energy immediately and leaned into it, chest out, screaming back at 19,156 people who were already halfway out of their seats.

We saw a version of that in Game 5 with Walsh, a small play that turned into something bigger because of how quickly the crowd grabbed onto it. This felt the same, just louder, heavier, more desperate.

In that stretch, everything was feeding everything else. The defense, the effort, the noise. In TD Garden, it doesn’t take much for that loop to close. And once it does, it’s hard to tell who’s pushing who.

Jaylen followed with an and-one. One-point game.

At that point, the idea of acting like a neutral observer felt deeply stupid. Bozkurt was standing. Hell, everyone was standing. The Garden was so loud that even if I cheered, no one would hear me anyway. I’m all the way up here, I told myself. I write for CelticsBlog. Who am I pretending for?

For a stretch, the Celtics looked like the team Brown later wished they had trusted more.

“I wish we trusted that style more,” Brown said after the game. “You saw tonight how everybody came out and played their tail off.”

He was right. During that run, all five guys on the floor mattered. The ball was zipping. The defense was hounding. Queta crashed. White pushed. Pritchard spaced. Hauser hit. Jaylen guarded Embiid and had some seriously loud blocks in the fourth like he was trying to drag the whole season back by himself.

It got down to one again and again.

But they never broke through.

Brown had a three go in and out. Pritchard missed a wide-open three after a ridiculous Jaylen block. Then Brown missed a clean midrange look, followed by a Hauser miss from deep. Five straight empty trips at the worst possible time.

After the game, Mazzulla said they had “two or three great looks to take the lead.”

They sure did. They just didn’t go in. As one fan told me before Game 5, it feels like a make-or-miss league these days.

Maxey answered. Then again. The lead stretched. The air came out in pieces. The game didn’t end all at once. But eventually, it faded into oblivion.

109-100.

What you can say right away, and what you can’t

The first thing that hits you in a Game 7 loss isn’t analysis.

It’s that it’s over.

I get that no one wants a positive spin right now. No one should. The Celtics blew a 3-1 series lead for the first time in franchise history. They lost three straight, two of them at home. And they lost to the Sixers. That all matters, and it will matter for a long time.

There will be hours and days to unpack all of it. The lineup choices. The reliance on three-point shooting. The offensive lulls. The defensive possessions where Embiid looked far too comfortable. The missed chances in Games 5 and 6. The way a season that once felt like a bonus, then an opportunity, somehow ended as a gut punch.

But in the immediate aftermath, sitting there while the Garden emptied out, I kept coming back to the same thing.

I loved watching this team.

That doesn’t make the loss sting any less, and it doesn’t make the collapse easier to swallow. Nor does it mean anyone has to skip the anger stage and move straight to gratitude because that would be obnoxious, and also impossible.

But this team gave us more than most people expected back in October. More than any team without Jayson Tatum for most of the year had any business giving. More than a gap year was supposed to contain.

Jaylen said as much after the game.

“This is probably one of my most fun years playing basketball,” he said. “I’m so grateful to be with this group.”

That matched what I felt watching them, even in a loss that will sit with Celtics fans for a long while. They were imperfect. Weird. Fun. Stubborn. Occasionally maddening. Sometimes hard to explain. They won a lot of basketball games and made a lot of people care more than they expected to. That can make the downfall hurt even more.

Mazzulla talked about the other side of chasing something bigger.

“When you go after something bigger than yourself,” he said, “you have to accept the other side of that.”

That is a very Joe way to put it. Maybe a little too philosophical when the wound is still so raw. But there’s truth in it, even if nobody wants to hear it yet.

Bozkurt stayed for a minute after the final buzzer. Not long. Just enough to take one more look around before leaving. Then he turned to me, pulled me in for a quick hug, and said, “Always next year.”

It wasn’t gloating. It wasn’t even really about the result. It felt like acknowledgment, like he understood what that game had just taken out of the people in that building.

I told him good luck, and I meant it. No edge left, no need for one. Somewhere along the way, the whole back-and-forth stopped feeling like a battle and started feeling more like a friendship.

I don’t think Bozkurt knew every Celtics rotation or the full weight of what it meant for this franchise to blow a 3-1 lead. And I certainly didn’t know much about Istanbul or what this Sixers team meant to him.

But basketball has its own language. You can feel when a game is slipping, just like you can feel when a crowd still believes. You can also feel when something is over before the clock says it is.

Those parts translated just fine. And for the record, if we ever revisit the “Embiid vs. every center ever” conversation, I’ll be sending him a playlist. Kareem. Hakeem. Russell. Wilt. We’ll take it from there.

Eventually, the Garden made everyone leave. Bozkurt. Me. All of us.

I wasn’t ready. Being around this team up close a few times this season only made it harder to let go of it. The way they played, the way the building responded to them, the way nights like this could swing from hopeless to electric in a matter of minutes.

The season ended earlier than it should have, and that part won’t sit right for a while.

But it was a ride I never will, and never would want to, forget.