Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers can hold their heads high after Game 3 loss, but the series is what it is

If this series is like a lot of playoff series, the Sixers just lost a game they needed to win.

Not that they should have won it. But they could have won it. Against a team like the Boston Celtics, those often prove to have been must-wins.

It will be a shame if that ends up being the case. The Sixers have played like a team that deserves a much better fate than the one that could await them after a 108-100 loss to the Celtics in Game 3. Two games from elimination is a tough place for a team to be when it has yet to see the absolute best from Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown, and when it has consistently seen the absolute worst from Derrick White. The odds say the Celtics’ trio of stars will have a game where they combine to shoot far better than the 43-for-100 they’ve managed over the last two. When they do, the Sixers will not walk away feeling like they could have won it.

The margin for error is slim. So is the margin for success.

The Sixers were operating well within that latter margin throughout Game 3. It was the second straight game they played defense at a level that had once seemed well beyond their capabilities. It was the second straight game where Tyrese Maxey spent long stretches looking like, if not the best player on the court, then certainly one who deserves mention with the Tatums and Browns of the world. It was the second straight game where the Sixers held a lead in the fourth quarter, and the second straight game where they survived the Celtics’ counterpunch. But perfection is a difficult thing to achieve in two straight postseason games. On Friday night, the Sixers fell short of it.

» READ MORE: Tyrese Maxey battles, VJ Edgecombe’s learning moment, and what we learned from the Sixers’ 108-100 loss in Game 3

“We were in a position to win this game,” said Maxey, who finished with 31 points on 12-of-31 shooting. “So it’s like watch the film tonight, tomorrow, get better at it, and come in Sunday. Got to get one. Got to protect home court and even the series. ... It could have went either way. But it’s fine. It’s fine. We’ll come back Sunday and try to get a W.”

Look, the Celtics are the better team, and that was manifested plenty in the final margin of Game 3. Celtics bench players Nikola Vučević and Payton Pritchard played a big role in countering the Sixers’ defensive coverages against Tatum and Brown. Pritchard knocked down five three-pointers, Vučević had three, and the bench had 11 overall.

The Sixers could have survived it if rookie star VJ Edgecombe had hit two of his seven three-point attempts instead of missing them all. Or if Maxey had gotten a couple more buckets to fall after a torrid stretch where he scored 22 points in 12 minutes between the third and early fourth quarters. But, then, Edgecombe is a rookie. And Maxey is but one man. Again, the Celtics are better.

The real misfortune of Game 3 is that the Sixers could have won it even without wish-casting best-case scenarios. All else remaining unchanged, the victory could have been theirs with a few different bounces of the ball: a couple of well-challenged offensive rebounds, a couple of hard-luck turnovers, a couple of whistles the refs would have been justified in swallowing.

“Turnover leads to a basket, offensive rebound leads to a three — it’s like, every time,” Maxey said with a tone of demonstrative exasperation. “Every single time. We did a hell of a job defensively guarding them, hell of a job in the half court, everybody fighting, doing a really good job. But it’s like, offensive rebound, three-ball, turnover, three-ball, or layup. Missed box out, layup. But when you play good teams, that’s what it is. You have to be sharp. You have to be extremely sharp in the playoffs.”

The offensive rebounds were particularly grating. After the Sixers cut the lead to 92-90, they stymied the Celtics at the other end of the court only to surrender a batted rebound, which led to a mid-range jumper by Brown. The dagger came later, when White grabbed an offensive rebound and Tatum drilled a three-pointer to put the Celtics up 106-100.

» READ MORE: Hatred for Boston, a couple divided by fandom, and Sixers fans holding on to hope: Inside the arena at Game 3

“They got some big plays,” said Paul George, who scored 18 points and was excellent in all phases of the game. “It was like, any given moment somebody came down with one that gave them another opportunity at the basket.”

That’s all part of it, of course. The reason the Celtics are the Celtics isn’t just the physical scoring and unguardable shot-making prowess of Tatum and Brown. It’s that those two superstars exist within a team that puts maximum pressure on an opponent in all of the marginal aspects of the game. The Sixers don’t have two bench players like Pritchard and Vučević. The Celtics do have a point guard in White who is a winning player even when he is shooting worse than anybody on the court.

It is a testament to the Sixers that the outcome of Game 3 was determined by the slimmest and most variable of margins.

“Our guys played their butts off,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said.

Their only option is to continue to do so.