The Celtics will play the 76ers four times in the regular season this year, just like they do every season with their division rival. But this year, things feel a little different. For Celtics fans, the main reason these games feel even more elevated than usual is the Jaylen Brown narrative, competing against a player who has spent the last 10 years becoming a legend in Boston.
But these games will also carry more weight thanks to LeBron James joining the Sixers as a free agent. And this year, LeBron has his eyes on the NBA history books in more ways than one. Entering the 2026-27 season, James is 76 assists away from passing Jason Kidd for 3rd all-time; he’s 29 steals away from passing Gary Payton for 5th all-time, and he’s 27 wins away from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most all-time.
Those are some major milestones, and with four Boston games on the schedule, there’s a real chance the Celtics will be witnesses to history, or tasked with preventing it from happening. For Philly, their games with Boston will be their 12th, 43rd, 52nd, and 63rd on their schedule.
Last season, James averaged 7.2 assists per game. If he continues that exact pace, he’ll pass Kidd in his 11th game this season. Considering he’s unlikely to play in every game, that lines up very well with their game against Boston on November 12th.Â
The steals could be the toughest one for Celtics fans to see. He averaged 1.2 per game last season, so it’s very hard to imagine he’ll be close to the 29 he needs to reach Payton by the time they play on November 12th, and barring injury and a lot of missed games, he will probably have cruised past the mark by the time they meet again on January 21st.
Celtics must stop LeBron from breaking wins record against them
But the big one, and the one to really watch for, is the all-time wins record. Obviously, only the games that James plays in will count, so if we assume, conservatively speaking, he misses one out of every 10 games, and the Sixers win at a pace for their projected 50.5 wins this season, then James could be on the cusp of history against Boston.
When they play on January 21st, the 76ers will have played 42 games. If James has missed four games, the team went 2-2 in those games, they’d need to be 28-14 coming in. That doesn’t seem crazy at all. At the time of their next meeting on February 7th, Philly will have played 51 games. Maybe LeBron has missed six games with a 3-3 team record. If the Sixers are 29-22, James will be going for the record. Again, not that crazy.
If he misses more games than expected, or the team is much worse than expected, that March 7th game could come into play. It’s always cool to see history, but in the case of LeBron and Philly, it would be much sweeter to prevent history. One way or another, James is going to hit all of these marks and break these records; let’s just make sure the Celtics aren’t in the building to watch it happen at their expense.
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