Observations from the Sixers’ 110-106 loss to Boston: Tobias makes a comeback, Kemba unstoppable, long off-season ahead

The 76ers’ season is now over following a four-game sweep after Sunday’s 110-106 loss to the Boston Celtics in their Eastern Conference first-round series. It should be a very long an interesting offseason. Here are observations of the game.

Early departure: Sometimes, if a team is up 3-0, it takes its foot off the gas. Celtics coach Brad Stevens showed early he wasn’t messing around. After Celtics center Daniel Theis turned the ball over and later fouled Josh Richardson, Stevens pulled him from the game with just 30 second elapsed. Through this series, Theis has committed several unnecessary fouls. Stevens showed he wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. Theis didn’t return until the beginning of the second quarter and seemed to have much more focus, while also making two wide-open threes.

Early fouls: The Sixers were aggressive taking it to the basket and looking for Joel Embiid in the post in the first quarter and it paid off. The Sixers led, 32-27, after the first quarter, making 14 of 19 free throws. It could have been better, but Embiid, an 80.7% foul shooter in the regular season, hit just 2 of 6. That said, the Sixers were attacking and drawing fouls on the Celtics.

Al Horford needing to post: The Celtics were putting smaller players such as Grant Williams and Semi Ojeleye on him.

Here, Horford takes Williams to the basket. Even though Horford misses, he is able to follow his shot for the score. This is taking advantage of matchups and letting Horford go to his strength. Horford also had success on one play posting Theis. When Embiid is out of the game -- or even when he is at the three-point area -- Horford’s most effectiveness is posting up. In the third quarter, he made a nice reverse layup on Jaylen Brown.

On the other hand, defensively, Horford couldn’t stay on Jaylen Brown, who could get any shot he wanted as you see below

Interesting stat: The Sixers, who have been hurt by turnovers, had just one in the first half, compared to eight for Boston. The Sixers led, 58-57, at half, but with that type of turnover edge, it should have been more.

Second key first half stat: Jayson Tatum, who picked up two early fouls in two of the first three games of the series, had none by halftime.

Torched by Kemba: Celtics point guard Kemba Walker got any shot he wanted off the dribble. The Sixers also had too many instances of not accounting for him on defense. Here he hits a transition three.

Tobias aggressive: This was the second straight game that Tobias Harris was aggressive offensively. The difference is that he was making more shots in Game 4 compared to Game 3. Harris entered the game 0-for-10 from three-point range but hit 2 of 3 in the first half. More importantly, early on, he was taking it to the basket. Even though he missed his first drive, he made his second and drew a foul on his third.

Sixers missed Harris: In the third quarter, Harris slammed his head on the court after his legs caught Jayson Tatum’s legs in the air. The Sixers trailed just 80-77 with 2 minutes and 40 seconds left in the third quarter. In his absence, the Celtics went on a 9-0 run to end the quarter, that was part of a 12-0 run entering the fourth period.

Harris returned with 5:12 left in the fourth quarter and the Sixers down, 102-90.

Tatum takes control: In that final 12-0 run, Tatum scored seven of the points. Matisse Thybulle had no answers defensively during that run.

Milton on threes: Shake Milton as a distributor at point guard leaves a lot to be desired, but as a three-point threat he can’t be left open.

As Milton showed in this clip, he is much more than just a stand-still three-point shooter. He can shoot off the dribble as he shows when Marcus Smart fell asleep and gave him too much room.

One thing that Milton and the Sixers didn’t do enough is when Walker was on him, they had to make him work more on defense. Milton also had his minutes limited by foul trouble.