How to watch Sixers at Celtics Game 1: Storylines, live stream, game time and more

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August 17th, 2020 10:42 AM

Whether there would be a postseason this year was at one point in serious doubt because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the NBA has managed to safely reach Day 1 of the playoffs.

Here are the essentials for Game 1 of the Sixers’ first-round series against the Celtics:

When: 6:30 p.m. with Sixers Pregame Live at 5 p.m.
Where: The Field House at The Wide World of Sports Complex
Broadcast: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Live stream: NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com and the NBC Sports MyTeams app

And here are three storylines to watch:

‘We don’t care about anybody else’s opinion’

The Sixers are widely considered the underdogs in this series. They’re missing Ben Simmons, one of their two All-Stars, because of a left knee injury, and finished 5.5 games behind Boston in the standings.

Tobias Harris isn’t worried about the external perception.

“To be honest, we don’t care about anybody else’s opinion but ours,” he said Sunday. “We are confident internally in our group, we know what we bring to the table, and we expect a lot from one another. At the end of the day, we are just focusing on us. Everybody can have noise, coming from any different parts, but at the end of the day, it’s all about what we do in our locker room and that’s what we are focused on.”

Few would’ve envisioned the Sixers entering their first-round series as substantial underdogs after the team’s splashy offseason – even those with concerns about Al Horford’s fit and how the roster was constructed – and yet here we are. We’ll see how the Sixers handle that role.

The possession game

For the first time under Brett Brown, the Sixers this year finished above 25th in turnovers – they were 10th in the league with 14.2 per game. It’s one early-season problem they addressed successfully.

“This is what I tell the team: Until we can fix this, this is a house built on sand,” Brown said on Nov. 11. “It is fool’s gold.”

If the Sixers finish even or slightly ahead of Boston in turnovers and win the rebounding battle, logic suggests they’ll have more possessions in the series. The second half of that equation should certainly be doable as the Sixers were second in rebounding percentage this season and will have the size advantage in many matchups.

“… This specific thing about one-shot defense and just being great on the defensive boards is a part of that belief I have,” Brown said Sunday. “It’s within us. We’re not a small team. I feel like this series, I bet when we look back at the outcome of this series when it’s all said and done, I think (quantity of shots) is going to be one of the telling points.”

The ‘firepower’ factor

Harris leads the Sixers with 5.3 points per game on drives, while Simmons is second with 4.8. The Celtics, meanwhile, have four players – Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward – averaging over five points per game on drives.

The teams are evenly matched in several areas, but this is a point where there’s a serious disparity. Boston generates so much more offense than the Sixers do from dribble penetration, and the rise of Alec Burks isn’t going to change that. An uptick in Harris and Richardson’s aggression likely won’t either.

Brown on Friday identified the Celtics’ “firepower” as his top concern this series.

“They have so much firepower,” he said. “They really can score. They have four players that can get 30 on a given night, and they play well together, and (head coach) Brad (Stevens) does a great job. And so I feel like their ability to put points on the board, their ability to make threes, their ability to create their own shots – four of them – is just lethal.”

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