Tyrese Maxey's box score from Game 1 looks busy enough to pass a quick glance. Twenty-one points is not nothing. But in a 123-91 loss, on 20 shots, it reads less like production and more like evidence.
Boston did not just contain Philadelphia. It bent the Sixers' offense into the exact shape they could not afford.
Before the series, Maxey was the cleanest argument for a Philadelphia scare. He had averaged 30 points in four games against Boston this season, and with Joel Embiid coming back from an appendectomy, the Sixers needed their lead guard to be the one thing the Celtics could not smooth out. If Maxey could get downhill, create efficient volume, and force Boston's defense to keep reacting, then maybe the math stayed interesting.
Game 1 went the other way. Maxey still took on the scoring burden, but the efficiency disappeared, and once that happens the rest of the Sixers' offense starts to look thin fast. Paul George had 17 points. VJ Edgecombe had 13. Kelly Oubre Jr. had 10. None of that changes the central problem: if Maxey's points arrive one hard shot at a time, Philadelphia is not stressing Boston nearly enough.
That is what a 32-point opener can hide in plain sight. Blowouts invite broad explanations about effort, talent, or playoff nerves. Those are real enough. But Maxey's line deserves its own spotlight because it gets at the series logic. Boston can live with a version of Maxey that scores without driving the game.
The Sixers do not have many paths here. One of the clearest was Maxey being efficient enough to tilt the floor. In Game 1, Boston took that path and flattened it.