The useful part of Paul George's postgame line was not that it sounded angry. It was that it was specific.
After the Sixers' 123-91 loss to Boston in Game 1 on April 19, George said Philadelphia offered little resistance defensively. Tyrese Maxey reached for a slightly different version of the same idea when he said the Celtics were too comfortable. Between those two descriptions, the whole game opens up.
This was not just a night when the Sixers missed shots and the score got away from them. They did miss shots, badly. They shot 39 percent from the field and missed 19 of 23 from three. Maxey scored 21 points on 20 shots. He and George combined for only 12 field goals. But those numbers almost flatter the idea that this was mainly an offensive failure, because they suggest a fix as simple as shooting better next time.
The more troubling read is that better shooting might not have changed the tone of the game very much.
Boston shot 50 percent and produced 20 fastbreak points. That is what comfort looks like in playoff basketball. It is not just clean jumpers. It is a game played without enough force applied to it, where the better team gets to flow from one advantage into the next. Jayson Tatum finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists. Jaylen Brown added 26 points. Those are star lines, but they are also system lines. Boston was not dragged into an ugly game. It got to play its own game.
That is why George's quote matters more than the box score trivia. Players usually know when a beating came from variance and when it came from posture. This looked like posture. Nick Nurse called the defensive breakdowns and unforced errors unacceptable, which is coach language for the same basic complaint: the Sixers did not make Boston work hard enough for anything important.
If Philadelphia wants this series to become real, the first correction is not aesthetic. It is emotional and physical. The Celtics cannot be allowed to feel comfortable again. Until that changes, every shooting discussion is secondary.