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With less than 48 hours to prepare for a team that brought completely different challenges than the Milwaukee Bucks, the Celtics won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the favored Philadelphia 76ers with a tenacious defensive effort and their best offensive performance of the postseason.
Meanwhile, another Celtics starter sat on the sideline looking dapper in street clothes. Jaylen Brown watched from the bench in a nice turtleneck after his pleas to play, despite a strained hamstring, were denied.
That even lessened the Celtics’ chances to win, apparently. But, somehow, they led this game for the final 30:42 in a stunningly impressive 117-101 win.
The game left the 76ers wondering whether they are ready for the intensity of the efficient Celtics after handling the undisciplined Miami Heat rather easily.
Knowing the 76ers love to launch 3-pointers and surround gifted big man Joel Embiid with premium shooters, the Celtics spent the evening running J.J Redick, Dario Saric, Marco Belinelli, Robert Covington, and Ersan Ilyasova off the 3-point line. They turned that quintet into drivers, figuring correctly that allowing 2 points is better than allowing 3.
The 76ers made 57 3-pointers in the five-game series with the Heat. They made 5 of 26 Monday, including a combined 3 for 20 from those aforementioned five.
The Celtics’ strategy was to allow Embiid to have anything he could muster with one-on-one coverage and he led all scorers with 31 points. But the Celtics outscored Philadelphia by 6 points with him on the floor. With Embiid the lone 76ers shooter to consistently make buckets, Philadelphia struggled to score.
Meanwhile, the Celtics countered with 17 3-pointers, their most since Feb. 23 as they seemingly made every big shot in staving off every Philadelphia run.
But the masterpiece started with defense.
The Celtics decided to 1) force Embiid to score in the paint and 2) turn pass-first Ben Simmons into more of a shooter. Since Simmons doesn’t shoot threes – he’s missed all 12 of his attempts as an NBA player – the tradeoff was 2’s for 3’s. The Celtics gladly accepted that deal.
“You’re going to have to balance that as the series goes on,’’ Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “You could get 31 [points in] isolation, but if you’re doubling and everything else you’re giving up [more points] because you’re leaving shooters. It’s a fine line, a balancing act. It’s what makes it really hard because they’re so talented.’’
The Celtics have spent this season being a team that loves to shoot the three (10th in the NBA in attempts) and skilled at making the three (second in the NBA). But Boston made just 35 percent of its 3-point attempts in that grinding seven-game series with Milwaukee.
In Game 1 against the 76ers, they made 47.2 percent, including a playoff career-high seven threes from Terry Rozier, who shot the ball with confidence and in rhythm. It was one of those nights when he appeared to know the shot was going to fall.
Jayson Tatum added 28 points and, most important, was able to get to the free throw line a career-high 12 times.
The Celtics felt mighty comfortable attacking the rim with Embiid defending away from the basket.
“My objective is basically to not let anyone get to the rim,’’ Embiid said. “But when you play defense on guys like Al Horford and Marcus Morris that are able to stretch you off so much, you just got to respect it and make adjustments.
“If I have to switch on a guard, I mean I feel like I’m pretty good defensively. I’m going to do my best to stop them. In those situations, I thought we didn’t execute well. That’s something we have to correct a lot. They were pretty wide open on a couple of those possessions. I feel like that killed us a lot tonight. Next game we just have to be able to kind of like switch everything and find something or blitz.’’
While Philadelphia presents myriad issues with its shooting, it seemed the Celtics were relieved not to have faced a scoring forward like Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, who couldn’t be defended in the previous series. The 76ers lack that scoring forward who can score at ease from midrange, so the Celtics countered by blitzing the 3-point line and forcing their shooters to create off the dribble. That is a better matchup for the Celtics because they don’t need size to defend the 3-point line. Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, and even Shane Larkin were chasing shooters off their shots.
Stevens disagreed when asked if was their best defensive game of the playoffs, but indeed it was. The 76ers averaged 114 points in their series against Miami. They were able to score at will because the Heat couldn’t defend their shooters.
“On the defensive end, we really wanted to try to contain them the best that we could, and not giving them any easy looks,’’ Horford said. “I felt like we understood Philadelphia is too good of a team if you’re stagnant offensively and one of things we wanted to do is play with pace.’’
The Celtics looked like the better team Monday. They came in with a brilliant game plan despite fatigue from a seven-game series with the Bucks. The 76ers had six days off and played as if they weren’t ready for the moment.
The Celtics were more than ready. But then again, we shouldn’t have expected anything different.
Gary Washburn can be reached at gwashburn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GwashburnGlobe.
