Throughout the Boston Celtics' Round 1 rivalry clash against the Philadelphia 76ers, Joe Mazzulla has issued a warning. His team cannot let Quentin Grimes get going offensively. His ability to heat up represents a solution to the Sixers' search for complementary scoring. Their alternative options for supplementary offense are limited.
During this series, there have been moments when Philadelphia gets glimpses of what Grimes can provide. A second-quarter burst here, a pair of 3s there -- before Game 5, they had just amounted to tantalizing flashes.
Tuesday night at TD Garden, the fifth-year guard went from serving Hors d'Oeuvres to delivering an entree. He generated 18 points off the visitors' bench. The former first-round pick converted on five of his eight field-goal attempts. That includes knocking down four of the seven threes he hoisted.
Quentin Grimes helps propel Sixers past Celtics
While it took Grimes a while to take his first shot, it turned into a four-point play. It stemmed from VJ Edgecombe's hustle to keep a possession alive after a pass slipped through Joel Embiid's hands. The 76ers' star rookie quickly found Grimes. As Derrick White closed out to him, he calmly elevated and buried a 3 while getting fouled.
In the second half, he helped erase a 13-point deficit. His pair of third-quarter 3s included one where Tyrese Maxey rejected an Andre Drummond screen and drew two defenders. From there, the Celtics were miscombombulated, as the Sixers had them scrambling before Grimes cashed in a clean look from the corner.
The six-foot-four guard also fed off of Joel Embiid's presence down low. In the second half of his second game back from an appendectomy, the former league MVP was a force that Boston had no answer for -- if only the hosts had played with more pace. Instead, the 76ers' star center got the opportunities he craved. He parlayed them into a game-high 33 points, pairing it with eight assists, also the most in the matchup.
The most damning example of Grimes capitalizing on Embiid's gravity occurred in the final frame. With Derrick White on the seven-foot-center in the low post, Jayson Tatum came over to double him. The seven-time All-Star kicked the ball out to Grimes. Jaylen Brown began to rotate, but he stopped short with a jump stop. As he did all night, the former University of Houston standout elevated with confidence, let it fly, and drilled it as the six-minute mark arrived. That triple occurred with the visitors leading 97-94.
"Embiid puts pressure on the rim, forces help, and then you have to be able to read rotations there," said Joe Mazzulla while discussing Grimes's impact and success playing off Embiid in Game 5. "And he had one tough one coming off a three-pointer. We fouled him twice on two of them, and then one came off of a double-team — we just didn't make the rotations. So, those are the things that — you just have to make those reads. But take away the ones — I think that the made four-point play came off an offensive rebound, it came off an ATO, so we've just got to clean those up."
While Grimes gave the Sixers the scoring boost they needed in their 113-97 win to save their season, the Celtics' search for a similar source yielded no such results. If that happens again, the latter is in danger of seeing this series go to a Game 7. Their best bet to avoid that is clear.
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