One game. One of the most extraordinary individual stories of this entire postseason. Joel Embiid — who missed 17 days with an appendectomy, came back in Game 4 to a 32-point blowout loss, then had three consecutive performances in Games 5, 6, and 7 that defied all medical and historical logic — scored 34 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, and dished 6 assists in a Game 7 on the road at TD Garden on a night when Jayson Tatum was ruled out two hours before tip with left knee stiffness. Tyrese Maxey added 30 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists, including the back-to-back layups in the final 90 seconds that closed the door on a Boston comeback that had been screaming to completion. Philadelphia won 109-100, completed the 14th 3-1 comeback in NBA playoff history, and advanced to the second round to face the New York Knicks. The Celtics' season is over.

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Philadelphia 76ers 109, Boston Celtics 100

The Celtics won the first two games of the series by a combined 67 points. They had the most reliable home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference. They led 3-1 and needed only to win one of three games. They only needed to win one game out of three, but failed to get over the hump, and the reason they didn't starts and ends with what Joel Embiid became after his appendectomy.

He walked into TD Garden on Saturday night with a wrap around his midsection — a reminder of the locker room trip he made in the third quarter — and briefly went back to the bench when Maxey fell into his knee late in the fourth quarter in a collision that sent the building into anxious silence. Both times, he came back. He ended the night having scored or assisted on 56 points. He posted up Luka Garza, Hugo Gonzalez, and Neemias Queta with the same methodical dominance that defined his regular season, drew 11 free throws, and orchestrated Philadelphia's offense in the moments that mattered. It was the first Game 7 win of his career — the Sixers had been 0-3 in Game 7s in the Embiid era — and the first time Philadelphia had beaten Boston in a playoff series since 1982, a 44-year drought that ended at the building where it has hurt them most.

Maxey's 30 on 11-of-20 shooting was the perfect co-headliner. He scored 10 of his points in the game's final six minutes when Boston's comeback had cut the lead to one. With the Celtics at 97-96 and the crowd threatening to physically lift TD Garden off its foundation, Maxey drove baseline for a tough layup with two minutes left — 101-98. On the very next possession, he did it again. 103-98. Boston missed 10 of its final 12 three-point attempts in the fourth quarter, and that was the game. Edgecombe added 23 points on 8-of-17 from three with 4 assists and 6 rebounds in a performance that confirmed his rookie postseason as genuinely historic. George contributed 13 points while managing an illness, playing through it because there was no other option on a night that required all four of them to give everything available.

Without Tatum — ruled out with left knee stiffness about 90 minutes before tip, the knee he'd left Game 6 to have treated — the Celtics were a two-man team. Jaylen Brown gave them everything: 33 points on 12-of-27 shooting, a second-quarter takeover that turned a 13-point deficit into a one-point lead, then the third-quarter body language of a man trying to will a result that the game's math didn't support. Derrick White had 26 points and five threes, most of them in the first half, and went quiet precisely when Boston needed him most. The Celtics went 13-of-49 from three as a team — the same three-point shooting breakdown that cost them Games 2 and 6. Their one-point lead in the second quarter, built on a 22-6 run, was the only time Boston led in the game. Philadelphia led for all but 31 seconds of the entire night. The Celtics opened the fourth on a 16-4 run that cut it to one. It was the last real threat they mounted. Back-to-back Maxey layups stopped it cold.

Mazzulla said Tatum came into the facility Saturday with knee discomfort and the medical team decided for him not to play. Tatum had briefly left Game 6 for treatment before returning. The injury's full nature — whether it's the same left knee that's been monitored all series or something new — wasn't disclosed. The Celtics lost the first-round elimination without their franchise player. That's all the context that will follow this result into next offseason and beyond.

Philadelphia is the 14th team in NBA history to win a playoff series after trailing 3-1. They're the first team since the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers — in the Finals, against Golden State — to win three straight elimination games on their way to that comeback. They'll face the Knicks on Monday night at Madison Square Garden. Embiid's knee is the question nobody can answer tonight. But he just played 39 minutes in a Game 7 after an appendectomy. The rules of what he can and cannot do have been rewritten repeatedly this series.

PHI 109 · BOS 100

This first round produced something the NBA rarely gives its fans in full: sustained, compounding drama that refused to resolve cleanly until the very end. Two Game 7s remain Sunday in the East — Detroit at home against Orlando, Cleveland at home against Toronto — and the first round will close as it has lived: with every team fighting to the last available moment.

But the chapter that closes tonight is one of the great individual stories any postseason has produced. Embiid returned from an appendectomy to lead his team back from 3-1 down in a series against the team that has beaten them for 44 years. He went to the locker room twice in Game 7 and played 39 minutes. Maxey was the steady engine in every elimination game, topping out at 30-11-7 in the one that ended it. Edgecombe — 20 years old, a rookie — became the youngest player to post 30 and 10 in a playoff game and showed up in three consecutive elimination games. Brown gave Boston everything he had. Tatum gave them nothing through no fault of his own. The series swung on health and resilience and the refusal of one player to let his body dictate the outcome.

The Sixers are through. Sunday settles the East's two remaining series. And the NBA's second round officially begins on Monday.

Stud of the Day: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers — 34 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists in 39 minutes in a road Game 7, 18 days after an appendectomy, twice leaving the floor with physical issues and twice coming back. He was the best player on the floor in the most important game of the series. The first Game 7 win of his career. The first Philadelphia win over Boston in a playoff series since 1982. Whatever comes next for Embiid physically, what he did in this series cannot be argued with.

Dud of the Night: Boston Celtics (team) — They led this series 3-1. They lost it. Tatum's absence on Saturday is context, not cause — they still had Brown, White, and home court. They went 13-of-49 from three in Game 7 and missed 10 of their final 12 three-point attempts in the fourth quarter with the season on the line. The Celtics' three-point shooting collapsed in every loss of this series and they never found a way to sustain it when the games mattered most. It is the first time in franchise history they lost a playoff series after leading 3-1.