Apr 15, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies infielder Dylan Moore (42) throws a pitch against the Chicago Cubs in the ninth inning at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images | Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
The Phillies got Harry Doyle’d yesterday in Miami, but hey, they get two more cracks at winning the series down there. Maybe they were just taking that day as a rest day.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - MAY 02: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics looks on from the bench during the first half of a game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Game Seven of the First Round of the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs at TD Garden on May 02, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) | Getty Images
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.
The inaugural Sunday Leadoff on Peacock in 2026 will feature the defending American League champion Toronto Blue Jays and the hosting Minnesota Twins — two teams that started the year on different paths and have begun to both trend towards .500.
It's the final game of a four-game series with Toronto having won two of the first three games. The Blue Jays are coming off a 4-2 homestand against the Guardians and Red Sox and have climbed from a 7-13 start to 16-17.
The Twins had lost 11 of 13 heading into this weekend series, being swept by the Rays and Reds as well as dropping two of three to the Mariners and Mets. They enter play on Sunday at 14-20.
The Jays are still six games back of the Yankees, who are off with the best record in the American League as of Saturday night.
Minnesota won the American League Central in three of the past eight seasons, but has finished fourth in the five-team division in each of the last two years and are trending in that direction again after a surprising 11-7 start. The Twins took two of three from the Jays in Toronto from April 10-12, and the Jays are now looking for a little revenge.
Sunday's probable starters are right-hander Trey Yesavage for the Blue Jays and right-hander Joe Ryan for the Twins.
See below for additional information on how to watch the Twins vs. Blue Jays and a breakdown of the game. Also check out the schedule for the MLB on NBC and Peacock. There will be 27 prime-time MLB games featured across NBC, Peacock and NBCSN in 2026. NBC Sports will also stream one out-of-market game each day of the 2026 MLB season nationally on Peacock.
Matt Vasgersian will provide play-by-play alongside analysts Dexter Fowler (a former All-Star for the Cubs in 2016 and MLB Leadoff package analyst) and Justin Morneau (a Twins television analyst and former MVP winner in 2006 for the Twins) in the booth.
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Minnesota Twins preview:
While the Twins may be cold, nobody on the team is hotter than Brooks Lee, who had hit .292/.361/.554 over his last 72 plate appearances heading into this series against the Jays after a .162/.219/.167 start to the year. Lee had a go-ahead single against the Tigers off the bench on April 9 that seems to have sparked a better stretch of hitting.
While he's almost exclusively being used against left-handed starters, Minnesota's batting leader in baseball-reference WAR coming into the series was Austin Martin, who is hitting .357/.471/.429 against right-handers despite only 33 plate appearances against them so far this year.
Minnesota's front three of their rotation has been outstanding despite the absence of Pablo López to UCL surgery in Spring Training. Ryan, Taj Bradley, and Bailey Ober were each carrying a sub-4 ERA heading into this series and have struck out 112 batters in 117 1/3rd innings pitched.
Minnesota's offensive profile is on-base percentage heavy, as they ranked in the top-10 in team on-base percentage (.327) entering the series and were in the top five in baseball in runners left on base (233) despite the efforts of Byron Buxton (ten homers) and Ryan Jeffers (..287/.394/.471, four homers) early in the season.
Minnesota's pitching staff has done a great job of limiting homers, entering the series tied for the lowest homers allowed/nine innings among all pitching staffs at 0.8.
Not that anyone is surprised by this, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is hitting the cover off the ball early with an MLB-leading .358 average entering this series. He leads the team in hitting WAR despite only two homers.
After a slow start to his introduction to MLB pitching, offseason addition Kazuma Okamoto has turned it on of late, hitting .278/.361/.630 with six homers over Toronto's past 15 games. It's vital for the Jays to get the rest of the lineup heated up as they try to climb out of their slow start.
Perhaps the return of George Springer will help things. Springer fractured a toe earlier in the season and just recently returned. He was only hitting ..212/.307/364 as of Saturday night, but he's coming off a .309/.399/.560 2025 season and should be able to get closer to the latter than the former.
Despite heavy investments in their pitching this offseason, Toronto's team ERA heading into this series was 4.20 — a little above the 4.16 league-average ERA. The return of Yesavage should help, while injuries to stalwarts like Jose Berrios and Shane Bieber has had them relying on depth quite a bit more than expected early on.
Sunday Night Baseball will make its debut March 29 with the Guardians vs. Mariners. The 18-game MLB Sunday Leadoff schedule will begin May 3, with the defending AL champion Toronto Blue Jays visiting the Twins in Minnesota. On Sunday, July 5, all 15 MLB games will be presented nationally across Peacock and NBC as part of a special all-day “Star-Spangled Sunday” showcase.
NBC Sports will also stream one out-of-market game each day of the 2026 MLB season nationally on Peacock. Telemundo Deportes will present all NBCUniversal-produced MLB games in Spanish, with Universo televising all games broadcast on NBC.
From an MLB Opening Day doubleheader on March 26 to the Wild Card round of the playoffs, NBC Sports’ 2026 schedule delivers wall-to-wall coverage.
D.J. Short
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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.
“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.
“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.”
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.
“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.
“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.”
The 35-year-old, brother of Will Still, lasts three months
Watford sack 11th head coach since end of 2020-21 season
Watford have sacked head coach Ed Still, just three months into a two-and-a-half year contract, following the Championship club’s dismal end to the season. Still was Watford’s 11th permanent head coach since the end of the 2020-21 season.
Still, 35, was appointed in February following the resignation of Javi Gracia and his sacking comes at the end of the Championship season in which Watford lost six of their final seven games. The Hornets finished 16th, 10 points above the relegation zone.
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 12: Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby (87) during a game against the Washington Capitals on Sunday, April 12, 2026 at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The game drew extra attention from fans, because it could be Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin's final NHL game in Washington. (Photo by Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Sidney Crosby is under contract next season in 2026-27 to play for the Penguins. What comes after that will have to be determined at a later date.
“Just wait and see,” Crosby said on Friday about his future status during exit interviews. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, but we’ll just wait and see.”
That matches his approach from recently, Crosby waited two and a half months in the summer of 2024 to sign a two-year contract extension with the Penguins that covered 2025-26 and 2026-27. He will be turning 40 years old shortly after this deal ends.
Whether or not we see a 40+ year old Crosby playing in the NHL in 2027-28 is a bridge that the forward hasn’t come close to crossing yet this soon after a season comes to an end. Crosby finished his 21st season in Pittsburgh, 22 is coming up next year. Year 23 isn’t assured, though it isn’t ruled out at this point either.
Crosby would be eligible to officially sign another extension for 2027-28 starting in just a couple of months on July 1st of this year. It doesn’t sound like the long-time Pittsburgh captain is in any hurry to make that decision one year ahead of time.
One positive for this off-season is there won’t be any rumors or wishful thinking out of Canada to stir up trade rumors, being as the Penguins made the playoffs and at least held out enough promise to making coming back to Pittsburgh a foregone conclusion in 2026-27 to potentially finish out his illustrious career wearing the only NHL jersey he’s ever known.
Despite suffering two injuries to each leg since February, Crosby proclaimed himself to be in good shape and dismissed questions about the possibility of undergoing surgery this summer.
“I’m going to have discussions [Friday] and talk to doctors and things like that,” Crosby said. “I feel pretty good.”
At this point, he likely doesn’t have a firm answer about long long he will continue playing in the NHL. For anything beyond next season, we’ll likely have a long time to “wait” before we “see”.
I’ve made this point before on Pinstripe Alley, but it’s never a bad time to bring it up: Boy, do I love a good, boring win. The Yankees have been getting quite a few of those lately, and that continued yesterday against the Orioles. The Bombers very casually roughed up Kyle Bradish, Ryan Weathers was effective enough despite not necessarily having his wipeout stuff, and the offense kept adding when Bradish left, ensuring that any bullpen lapses wouldn’t hurt too much. The end result: a 9-4 win that didn’t even feel that close. May there be more on the horizon!
Today on the site, Estevão will spotlight some trends from the Yankees’ AL East foes’ first month, Peter will present the Rivalry Roundup, Matt will celebrate the 121st birthday of Yankees pitching legend Red Ruffing, Scott will have a feature on Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre reliever Bradley Hanner, and after the matinee, John will write up this week’s Social Media Spotlight.
Today’s Matchup
New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles
Time: 1:35 p.m. EST
Video: YES Network, MASN
Venue: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY
Questions/Prompts:
1. How deep does ace Max Fried go this afternoon against the O’s?
2. Any Game 7 predictions for today? We’ve got the top-seeded Detroit Pistons against the underdog Orlando Magic, and Toronto Raptors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA, as well as Canada’s last hope for snapping its 33-year Stanley Cup drought with the Montreal Canadiens trying to advance to the next around against the Tampa Bay Lightning (who, of course, have won three Cups in that timespan, including against the Habs in 2021).
Emilio Gay scored his third century of the season while Northamptonshire’s Ben Sanderson rampaged through Worcestershire
A fifth wicket at Canterbury, where events are hurtling towards a conclusion. Shoaib Bashir, whose throw ran out Northeast, now catches Ekansh Singh off Rory Haydon, who is having quite a game – eight wickets and counting. Kent 65-5.
Mike Daniels has an eye on events from the Grace Road scorebox: “You feel, with conditions as they are and a new ball in 10 overs, that Leics won’t be long in being asked to follow on, short of a miracle.” Eskinazi and Ajaz Patel have just picked up a batting bonus point, though Eskinazi doesn’t want to be wafting like that too often.
Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe continued his rehab assignment with the Somerset Patriots at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater on April 17, 2026. | Alexander Lewis / MyCentralJersey / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
New York Daily News | Gary Phillips: Anthony Volpe’s rehab assignment will end today, and the Yankees will have to chose what to do with the former top prospect. He will either need to be activated and added to the MLB roster, or optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and begin his season for real in the minors. With José Caballero doing everything the Yankees could possibly ask of him, especially with his shortstop defense, some time in Scranton to ensure that Volpe can be a representative MLB player might not be the worst idea. Of course the counterpoint is what risk do you pose in hurting Volpe’s confidence, a player who has already struggled to live up to the expectations placed on him in his career?
NJ.com | Bob Klapisch: Much was made over the winter about the new Trajekt machines, batting practice aids that replicate the arm angle and movement of virtually any MLB pitcher. At least one Yankee has found success in a more low-tech environment though, with the aforementioned Caballero sinking his teeth into onfield batting practice. The shortstop has hit four home runs on the year, after five all of last season, and credits the confidence that watching the ball travel around the stadium during BP instills with the power surge. I’m not sure Cabby will ever be hitting in the top third of a lineup, but not having automatic outs at the bottom of the order has been a big part of the Yankees’ success early.
New York Post | Bridget Reilly: Yep, I’m gonna talk about Ben Rice again. The perceived vulnerability in the Yankee slugger was supposed to be left handed pitching — Paul Goldschmidt came back to the Bronx on a $4 million insurance policy as a partial hedge against that weakness. Instead, Rice is the second-best hitter in all of baseball against lefties, with a sterling 1.308 OPS facing southpaws in the first six weeks of the season. The Yankees lost Juan Soto and then effectively made Juan Soto out of a 27-year-old Dartmouth alum, one of the more stunning player development successes in recent years. A platoon hitter no more!
May 2, 2026; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) talks with Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) following game seven of the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Winslow Townson-Imagn Images | Winslow Townson-Imagn Images
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.
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.
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.
Neemias Queta scores the And-1 off a pass by Derrick White to cut the 76ers lead to just 4 (with replays).
Reggie Miller is convinced there should have been an offensive foul call on White prior to the And-1. pic.twitter.com/z8ilcdXgD5
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.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – MAY 02: Head coach Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics looks on during the fourth quarter of a game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Game Seven of the First Round of the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs at TD Garden on May 02, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) | Getty Images
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.
Montreal Canadiens (48-24-10, in the Atlantic Division) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (50-26-6, in the Atlantic Division)
Tampa, Florida; Sunday, 6 p.m. EDT
LINE: Lightning -159, Canadiens +134; over/under is 5.5
NHL PLAYOFFS FIRST ROUND: Series tied 3-3
BOTTOM LINE: The Montreal Canadiens visit the Tampa Bay Lightning in game seven of the first round of the NHL Playoffs. The teams meet Friday for the 11th time this season. The Lightning won 1-0 in overtime in the previous matchup.
Tampa Bay has a 19-10-3 record in Atlantic Division games and a 50-26-6 record overall. The Lightning have a +57 scoring differential, with 286 total goals scored and 229 allowed.
Montreal is 48-24-10 overall and 19-10-3 against the Atlantic Division. The Canadiens are seventh in league play with 279 total goals (averaging 3.4 per game).
TOP PERFORMERS: Nikita Kucherov has scored 44 goals with 86 assists for the Lightning. Jake Guentzel has three goals and seven assists over the past 10 games.
Cole Caufield has 51 goals and 37 assists for the Canadiens. Nicholas Suzuki has one goal and nine assists over the past 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Lightning: 5-3-2, averaging 2.3 goals, 3.9 assists, 6.7 penalties and 17.6 penalty minutes while giving up 2.4 goals per game.
Canadiens: 5-3-2, averaging 2.4 goals, 4.5 assists, 6.7 penalties and 16.6 penalty minutes while giving up 2.5 goals per game.
INJURIES: Lightning: Victor Hedman: out (personal), Pontus Holmberg: out (upper-body).
Canadiens: Patrik Laine: out (abdomen), Noah Dobson: out (thumb).
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - MAY 02: Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics looks on during the second quarter of a game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Game Seven of the First Round of the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs at TD Garden on May 02, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) | Getty Images
BOSTON – On Sunday night, the Celtics were on top of the world, holding a 3-1 series lead over their rival Philadelphia 76ers, equipped with a fully healthy roster and on the heels of a spectacular 56-win regular season.
Fresh off a 32-point offensive masterpiece, Payton Pritchard sat at the podium and reflected on the biggest game of his playoff career.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown had just finished their 119th playoff game as teammates.
Jordan Walsh was emerging as one of the best defensive stoppers of the playoffs.
In the locker room after the game, Brown randomly dubbed Baylor Scheierman “Big Shot Bob” with a smile.
The vibes, as the kids say, were high. And, the Celtics seemed to be at the beginning of what felt like an inevitably long playoff journey.
Instead, they never won another game. Six days later, the season is over.
At the Celtics locker room at TD Garden, Brown stares straight ahead. The players are silent. Tatum is in street clothes. Derrick White is fighting tears.
How did it all go to flames in the blink of an eye?
The big-picture, non-technical answer is: that’s just sports. The unpredictability of basketball is what makes it great. It’s what keeps us watching. It’s also what makes the heartbreak so sudden, so painful.
The same Orlando Magic team that lost to the Celtics’ bench unit came out and assumed a 3-1 series lead over the Detroit Pistons a few weeks later.
And, just a few days after that, that same Magic team scored a stunning 19 points in the entire second half of their Game 6. How can one make sense of that?
The Celtics were, and are, aware of the ridiculous unpredictability of this sport.
After they took a 1-0 lead in the Philly series, Joe Mazzulla’s media availability was filled with questions about how great a job he’d done this season, about his incoming Coach of the Year award.
He, as he’s done all year, deflected the praise.
“This could all change 24 hours from now, to where we’re having different conversations,” Mazzulla said. “So it’s part of just the perspective of being rooted in something, regardless of the environment around you on a 24-hour cycle.”
Unfortunately for him, those words aged well: the Celtics’ season, a season that was as special as it was unexpected, is over.
The bleeding began last Tuesday night, when the Celtics got crushed in the second half of Game 5, and missed 14 straight field goals to lose the game. A 13-point third-quarter lead turned into a blowout loss.
In Game 6, they were outworked in front of a raucous 76ers crowd that brought back the “We Got Boston” chants.
And in Game 7, all the mileage had begun to catch up to Tatum. After missing the last 15 minutes of Game 6, he was a late add to the injury report on Saturday, with left knee tightness.
Two hours before tip-off, he was ruled out.
“He came in today with knee discomfort,” Mazzulla said. “We made the decision for him.”
That meant the Celtics had to come into Saturday’s game with a completely different look.
Making sense of Game 7
Mazzulla made the decision to bench two starters — Neemias Queta and Sam Hauser – in favor of Ron Harper Jr. and Luka Garza. Neither guy ended up playing significant minutes — Harper Jr. played 4 minutes, and Garza played 9 — but that stunning decision set the tone for what ultimately ended up being a wild Game 7.
Pritchard said he wasn’t surprised by that new-look starting five. The Celtics, after all,
The Celtics trailed by as many as 15 in the first quarter and by as many as 18 in the fourth, but each time, they clawed their way back into the game, ultimately cutting the deficit to 1 with two minutes to spare.
But, just like they did in Game 5, they went cold. In the final 5 minutes of the game, they missed 10 straight field goals, including a wide-open Pritchard three, and multiple Jaylen Brown middies.
Game 7, however, was in many ways different from that Game 5 collapse. The Celtics went 10 guys deep, relying on 13 first-half Hugo Gonzalez minutes. For the first time since Game 1, they recorded fewer turnovers than their opponents. They were undoubtedly the harder-playing team. Neemias Queta, who struggled through the series’ first six games, put together a masterful performance, tallying 17 points on 7-8 shooting.
Perhaps in turn, the TD Garden crowd was the loudest it’s been all year.
Brown wished that the Celtics had played that frenetic pace all series, before Game 7.
“Tonight, I wish we played that style and trusted that style more even throughout the playoffs,” he said. “Even through wins and through losses. Obviously, it’s not always the easiest decision, but I wish that style for our team was how we empowered the rest of our group, and you saw tonight how everybody came out, and they played their tail off. I wish we trusted that more.”
Hindsight is 20-20, but dozens of fans at TD Garden echoed that sentiment.
“I’m just happy to be watching this team,” one fan told me at halftime, emphasizing how much he appreciated the fact that the Stay Ready players were getting a shot.
“I’m so grateful to be with this group,” Brown said. “This group is awesome. I had a fun year. This is probably one of my most fun years playing basketball. It wasn’t always perfect. It wasn’t always analytically or aesthetically pleasing. But we won a lot of basketball games, and people could see the grit and the fight that we played with every single night. Tonight was an example of that. We left it all out there, we played a rookie, we played whatever, and we scrapped all the way to the end. Just came up a couple plays short.”
Payton Pritchard’s perspective was all about the big picture, about how the 2025-2026 season could be used as a building block for the future, just as the pre-2024 seasons culminated in a championship.
“Just because you don’t win a championship one year, doesn’t mean it didn’t build for the next championship,” Pritchard said. “So, when we won Banner 18, four years before that, we lost four straight — lost to Miami, lost in the finals. So those might have been disappointing years, but maybe those led to the championship. So, that’s how I look at it.”
It’s a beautiful mindset. Still, it’s difficult to immediately make sense of the fact that a season that had so many beautiful highs ended with sudden devastation.
As White exited the TD Garden parquet with a towel over his head, it was hard to believe that less than a week ago, the Celtics were returning to Boston with a 3-1 lead, seemingly on top of the world, with a whole playoff run ahead of them, a healthy Jayson Tatum, and title aspirations.
Joel Embiid's return for the Philadelphia 76ers in their series against the Boston Celtics proved crucial [Getty Images]
Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey inspired the Philadelphia 76ers to victory in their series decider against the Boston Celtics as they knocked their rivals out of the NBA play-offs and set up an Eastern Conference semi-final against the New York Knicks.
The 76ers, who came back from 3-1 down in the best-of seven series to force a deciding match, won 109-100 on the road to eliminate the 2023-24 NBA champions.
Embiid contributed 34 points, 12 rebounds and six assists, while team-mate Tyrese Maxey scored 30 points and registered 11 rebounds and seven assists as Philadelphia became only the 14th team to win a series after going 3-1 down, achieving the feat for the first time in their history.
The 76ers also beat the Celtics in the play-offs for the first time since 1982, having lost their last six series to Boston.
"We had a talk after game five and just said, 'Hey, man, we can't let the same stuff happen over and over and over again," Maxey told NBC. "At some point we've got to put a stop to it.
"And we did."
Boston were 99-98 behind following two Neemias Queta free throws before Maxey scored eight unanswered points to give his side a 107-98 lead with 15 seconds left.
"We started off well and then in the second quarter we kind of relaxed a little," said Embiid. "Same thing with the start of the fourth.
"But we stuck together, closed it out."
He added: "It means a lot. You can't win alone, you need a team to be able win and everybody doing their job."
Embiid had returned for the last four games of the series after an emergency appendectomy had ruled him out since 6 April.
"What changed in the series is Joel Embiid came back, and they're a completely different team," said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla.
Boston star Jayson Tatum missed the decider because of a left knee issue, with Jaylen Brown top scoring for them with 33 points.
"Loved the looks that we got, loved the process that we had, but hate the result," said Mazzulla.
In the middle of a dreadful start to the season, the players and coaches on the field aren’t the only ones making mistakes for the Mets. Yes, it seems it’s now spreading beyond the walls and into the video replay room.
In the first inning of Saturday’s eventual 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles in extra innings, Nolan McLean allowed three straight two-out hits with the third hit resulting in both an out and a run scoring.
Except it shouldn’t have.
Upon further review, the runner trying to advance to third base was tagged out, on a great throw by Austin Slater in right field, before the runner going home touched the plate which should’ve negated the run from counting.
The Mets did not challenge the call on the play and manager Carlos Mendoza was asked why not.
“He missed it,” the skipper said, referring to Mets replay analyst Harrison Friedland. “We called, obviously, and he missed it. Harrison is one of the best at his job. Obviously it ends up being a big play when you lose by one run, but I also think we had chances there and we couldn’t cash in.”
Yes, New York ended up losing by a single run in extra innings, meaning had they challenged the call and got it overturned and everything else stayed the same, the Mets would’ve won.
However, while that mental lapse proved costly, Mendoza doesn’t believe it’s the only reason his team lost. After all, once they tied the game in the seventh inning they had two more big chances to take the lead but were unable to cash in.
The first opportunity came with the bases loaded and one out and the top of the order coming up. In a lineup bereft of big hitters, this was the perfect time for the Mets to go for the jugular as Bo Bichette and Juan Soto, the two survivors of a once-thought stacked lineup, were due up.
Instead, Bichette, who had an RBI single earlier in the game, grounded into a force out at home and Soto struck out. Inning over.
Nevertheless, by a stroke of luck (and catcher’s interference), Bichette had a chance to redeem himself in the 10th inning with runners on first and second and nobody out. Once again, Bichette grounded out, this one a double play.
“I just hit two sliders in the ground,” Bichette said after the game. “I think for me just trying to be too perfect, have the perfect swing for every pitch and that’s not attainable.”
“This one stings,” he said. “We had our chances, but more times than not guys like Bo and Juan, those are the guys that we want at the plate to be in those situations. They’re gonna come through more times than not, today they just didn’t do it.”
D.J. Short
