October 17, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC

Postgame Report

Celtics Hold Off 76ers 125-120 as Brown Faces His Old Team in Preseason

By How we produce articles

Jaylen Brown scored 20 against Boston, but a Celtics group without Jayson Tatum beat a Philadelphia team that leaned on its starters.

Jaylen Brown has said he and Jayson Tatum have barely spoken since the trade that sent Brown from Boston to Philadelphia. "I went my way and he went his way," he said at media day. Friday night in Philadelphia, the first meeting between his new team and his old one, Tatum was not in uniform to test that. Brown made do with 20 points and eight rebounds in 31 minutes, and the Celtics won this preseason game 125-120.

The distance between them has not turned into open hostility, and neither man has pretended otherwise. Brown has called it "nothing but respect, besides when he plays the Sixers," and Tatum said on Sept. 17 that he loves Brown. Whatever coolness exists between them looks like the ordinary kind between two people who spent years sharing a franchise and now compete against each other, not a feud.

The game itself was a mismatch of intentions. Boston rested a number of key players, Tatum among them, and let a deep group of reserves and younger names carry the night. Philadelphia played most of its starters. Hugo Gonzalez led the Celtics with 21 points in 20 minutes, Ron Harper Jr. added 16 over a team-high 35 minutes, and Milos Uzan and Luka Garza scored 14 and 13. Gabe McGlothan grabbed 13 rebounds. Joel Embiid scored 27 for the 76ers, Tyrese Maxey had 22 and six assists, and Brown rounded out the top of the scoring.

Philadelphia has plenty of reasons to treat the result lightly. Brown now plays on a star-laden roster that also added LeBron James, a team that reached the second round last year. James played 25 minutes and finished with 8 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. A loss to a Boston team without most of its regulars will not tell the 76ers much, and a win by that team will not tell Boston much either. It was a late-October exhibition, one in which the more interesting names were mostly on the Philadelphia side.

Sources

All game reports