Sixers turn Boston into Brick City, get blown out of Game 1 and toward an early offseason

BOSTON — Against a team like the Boston Celtics, there is a limit to the number of makable shots an opponent can miss before its odds of victory drop to zero. On Sunday, the Sixers seemed to determined to find that limit.

There isn’t much to say about Game 1 of this Eastern Conference playoff beyond the sound of a leather basketball clanking hard off a metal rim. The Sixers didn’t lose 123-91 because Joel Embiid was out. They didn’t lose because they could not defend Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown. They lost because they could not shoot.

They missed 19 of 23 shots from three-point range.

They missed 13 of 29 shots at the rim.

They missed 6 of 23 free throws.

They missed here and there and everywhere.

» READ MORE: The Sixers get dismantled, Boston wins at effort ball and more of what we learned in a Game 1 rout

“I thought we did do a pretty good job at shot creation, probably not near enough, but certainly had our chances there,” coach Nick Nurse said. “You just can’t live with not making them.”

The only silver lining is that none of us need waste our time on narratives. Yes, the Sixers are outmanned and overmatched. The Celtics were 12.5-point favorites in Game 1 and 1-to-9 favorites in the series. Both numbers might’ve been light. Tatum scored 21 points in the first half. Brown scored 19 points in the second. The Sixers will struggle to find answers for either for as long as this best-of-seven series lasts. In Game 1, they shot so poorly that nothing else mattered. They were 39% from the field. They were 17% from three-point range. They were 74% from the foul line.

Clink, clank, clunk.

There was a glimmer of hope. It was a brief one, and it died a quick and deserved death. But it was there. Somehow.

Midway through the third quarter, Kelly Oubre Jr. found himself alone behind the three-point line with a chance to cut the Celtics lead to 12 points. That may not sound like much, but it was a considerable accomplishment in a game that had seen the Sixers miss 14 of their first 16 from three-point range and 10 of their first 15 at the rim. If not victory, then at least respectability, right?

Alas ...

Oubre’s shot bricked off the rim. With that, the dam began to break. Andre Drummond rebounded a Celtics miss, then threw a sloppy outlet pass that led to a Brown steal and wide-open three-pointer. Paul George missed a 21-foot turnaround jumper, and Nikola Vučević knocked down a three-pointer at the other end of the court. Less than three minutes into the fourth quarter, the Sixers were down 30.

“From the second quarter to midway through the third, we got ourselves underneath it a little bit and started playing some good basketball,” Nurse said, “but the minutes around that were unacceptable.”