Sports

Celtics Starting Lineup Made the Wrong Kind of History in Game 7 Loss to 76ers

By Ryan Phillips Sports Illustrated

Joe Mazzulla gambled on his starting lineup in Game 7 against the 76ers on Saturday night and it went bust to a historical degree. The Celtics fell to Philadelphia 109-100, allowing their opponents to complete a comeback from down 3-1 in the series.

After back-to-back losses and with Jayson Tatum sidelined by a knee injury, Mazzulla made wholesale changes to his starting lineup and paid the price for overthinking things.

For the first six games of the series, Mazzulla ran out the same starting lineup, listed below.

  • Jaylen Brown
  • Jayson Tatum
  • Derrick White
  • Sam Hauser
  • Neemias Queta

Instead of just swapping another player in for Tatum, he decided to give the lineup a complete facelift. The group he went with is listed below.

  • Jaylen Brown
  • Derrick White
  • Baylor Scheierman
  • Ron Harper Jr.
  • Luka Garza

To give an idea of how shocking this was, Scheierman, Harper and Garza made a combined 29 starts this season. They only have 36 career starts, and Mazzulla inserted them into his lineup for an elimination game. He paid the price.

Scheierman, Harper and Garza combined to score zero points. That made the Celtics the first team in NBA history with three scoreless starters in a playoff game.

The trio combined to go 0-for-7 from the field. Harper was so bad that he only played four minutes, while Garza clocked nine. Scheierman wound up getting 22 minutes and went 0-for-4 from the field and 0-for-3 from three-point range. He did have six rebounds, two assists and a steal, but was a -9. Harper was -7, while Garza was -15 and charted no rebounds or assists and a turnover.

Mazzulla addressed the move after the game, but the explanation felt hollow.

"There was a couple of things we saw tactically that we wanted to test out," he said. "Obviously, give the series a little bit of a different feel and take advantage of the roster that we have. And take advantage of the guys that can impact plays and whatnot. So, thought it was great by the guys, and we came up short."

It was definitely not "great by the guys" in this case.

This felt like a coach making a desperate move after his team led the series 3-1, then collapsed as the Sixers forced Game 7. It was a panicked move, and it likely only encouraged Philadelphia.

Pritchard replaced Harper with 7:58 left in the first quarter with the 76ers up 11-3, and he never returned.

Garza was removed in favor of Queta with 5:46 to go in the opening period, with the Celtics down 17-6. He returned briefly before the half, then again briefly in the third quarter.

Scheierman left the game with 4:39 remaining in the first and Boston trailing 19-12. He did play a chunk of other minutes, but was hardly effective.

Mazzulla will have to sit with his decision during what should be a long offseason. The Celtics entered the postseason on the rise. They won 13 of their final 16 games, secured the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference and Tatum had returned to the lineup and looked really good. Then they took a 3-1 lead in the first round and appeared to be cruising toward a matchup with the Knicks in the second round.

Less than a week later, the team is done for the year, and its coach has a lot of explaining to do.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Celtics Starting Lineup Made the Wrong Kind of History in Game 7 Loss to 76ers.

Copyright ABG-SI LLC. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 8:23 PM.

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