BOSTON (AP) — The Celtics appeared to be skipping toward the second round of the NBA playoffs following a 32-point road win in Game 4 at Philadelphia.
But back-to-back convincing wins by the 76ers in Game 5 and Game 6 have left a Boston team that once looked like a favorite to emerge from the Eastern Conference on the brink of an epic collapse.
A loss in Saturday’s Game 7 would be the No. 2 seed Celtics’ earliest exit from the playoffs since the 2020-21 season.
They may have to do it with star Jayson Tatum dealing with a new ailment after he briefly left Game 6 in the third quarter for unspecified treatment to an apparent left calf injury. Tatum, of course, is just 22 games into his return from the torn right Achilles tendon injury he suffered in last season’s playoffs.
The Celtics downplayed the current situation, with Tatum saying afterward that his leg was only feeling “a little stiff.” He said following a quick assessment and some time on the exercise bike he didn’t return because the game was out of hand and the starters had already been pulled.
Coach Joe Mazzulla said there was no injury at all and reiterated that in a conference call Friday.
“He’ll play,” Mazzulla said.
The recent history for winner-takes-all games for Philadelphia teams isn’t exactly on the 76ers side, though.
The Flyers’ return to the NHL playoffs served as a reminder they are the last Philadelphia sports team to win a Game 7, beating, yes, Boston, in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinal.
Since then, the 76ers in 2012, 2019, 2021 and 2023 have all lost Game 7s; the Flyers lost one in 2014 and 2020; and the Phillies lost Game 7 of the NLCS in 2023.
The Phillies also lost a decisive Game 5 in the 2011 playoffs.
The Celtics have long had the Sixers’ number in the playoffs, winning the last six series. The 76ers last eliminated the Celtics in the 1982 Eastern Conference semis.
“I’ve been playing these guys for so long,” 76ers star Joel Embiid said. “I’m tired of losing to them. We have a chance to accomplish something special.”
When/Where to watch: Game 7, 7:30 p.m. EDT (NBC/Peacock)
Series: Series tied 3-3
Betting line: Celtics by 7.5
What to Know: The Celtics are 27-10 all-time in Game 7s, the 76ers are 6-12 in such games and are 0-4 in them since 2001. It’ll be the ninth Game 7 between these two franchises, with Boston going 6-2 in the previous ones. Philadelphia is the 37th team in league history to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-1. Only 13 teams have overcome that deficit and won the series. If Boston is going to prevent the 76ers from becoming the 14th, its shooting must improve. The 76ers have held the NBA’s No. 2 rated offense during the regular season to under 100 points per game in back-to-back games. The Celtics also combined to shoot just 30.5% (22/72) from 3-point range, with 11 makes in each of those games. They led the league in the regular season, averaging 16 3s per game.
AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston contributed.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
Boston Celtics' Jayson Tatum, left, tries to get past Philadelphia 76ers' Paul George during the first half of Game 6 in a first-round NBA basketball playoff series Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Israel carried out several airstrikes Friday on southern Lebanon that killed at least 10 people, while the militant Hezbollah group said it fired rockets and drones at northern Israel where two soldiers were wounded.
Israel’s military and Hezbollah kept up their attacks despite a ceasefire in place since April 17.
Israel’s military on Friday afternoon urged residents of the Lebanese village of Habboush near the southern city of Nabatiyeh to evacuate, warning that those close to Hezbollah’s facilities would be in danger. An airstrike on Habboush that occurred around the time of the warning killed six people, including a woman and a child, and wounded eight, the Health Ministry said.
The state-run National News Agency reported that four people were killed in strikes on three other southern villages.
By Friday afternoon, Hezbollah had issued six statements saying it launched drones and rockets at Israeli military positions.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah launched an explosive drone that fell in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. Israeli media reported that a drone strike near Margaliot in northern Israel caused a fire, and that two soldiers were lightly wounded in a separate Hezbollah drone impact in the area.
Friday’s exchanges came after paramedics in southern Lebanon recovered the bodies of five people, including a man and his three sons, from under rubble in the village of Kfar Rumman, also near Nabatiyeh, a day after they were killed.
National News Agency reported that the five were killed in an airstrike late Thursday on Kfar Rumman. The agency identified those whose bodies were recovered as Malek Hamza and his sons, Ali, Fadel and Hamza. It said the strike also killed a Lebanese soldier. The Lebanese army confirmed that a soldier, Ali Jaber, was killed in the strike.
Despite the war, residents have continued to return to homes in southern Lebanon after being displaced for weeks because of the hostilities.
One of them was Umm Ali Khodor, whose apartment in the southern port city of Tyre was damaged during the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024 and again in the current conflict.
“We were displaced, we rented a house, but as you know the situation is very difficult,” the woman said. “We could not continue so we returned to our home.”
At Jabal Aamel hospital in Tyre, one of the few in the area that are still functioning, director Wael Mroueh said many of the wounded they are treating are people who initially fled but decided to return and take their chances in areas facing periodic bombardment.
The dynamic was “different from all the previous wars,” he said. Many residents left the villages surrounding Tyre in the early days of the war, "but a large number did not find places and came back.”
Many of the hospital’s staff are also displaced, and the medical facility is hosting them and their families to ensure that it can continue to operate. The hospital has enough food and supplies to last for a month, Mroueh said, and is relying on international organizations to maintain its supply chain.
Also Friday, a senior official with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies condemned the targeting of Red Cross volunteers during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
IFRC Under Secretary General for National Society Development and Coordination Xavier Castellanos Mosquera, who was visiting Lebanon, said that two Lebanese Red Cross volunteers have been killed and 18 others wounded by Israeli strikes. More than 100 health workers in total have been killed in Lebanon during the war, according to the country’s health ministry.
Mosquera told The Associate Press that Red Cross volunteers in southern Lebanon have described hugging each other before departing on a call “because they don’t know if they will return.”
He added that he had seen video showing “ambulances that were hit by bullets” while trying to rescue journalist Amal Khalil, who was buried in rubble when an Israeli strike hit a building where she was sheltering in southern Lebanon last month. Her body was pulled from the rubble hours later when rescuers were able to reach the scene.
The IFRC official also recently visited Iran, where he said key facilities of the Iranian Red Crescent Society had been targeted. Two chemical plants that had been their main providers of raw materials to produce plastic syringes and dialysis components were struck and destroyed. Another strike hit close to a Red Crescent rehabilitation center in Tehran that served children, elderly people and people with disabilities, causing damage.
Israel has denied that it deliberately targets health facilities and emergency workers.
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on its main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.
Since then Lebanon and Israel have held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.
The Health Ministry said Friday that the war’s death toll reached 2,618 while 8,094 were wounded.
Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press journalist Koral Said in Abu Snan, Israel, and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
Sanaa Khalil, 35, a Syrian farmer who lost her two legs in the past days by an Israeli airstrike while she was working at a banana plantation, lies on a bed as she is assisted by a relative at a hospital in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Sanaa Khalil, 35, a Syrian farmer who lost her two legs in the past days by an Israeli strike while she was working at a banana plantation, lies on a bed at a hospital in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A domestic worker cleans a damaged bedroom in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, April 30, 2026 as the homeowner returns to the house. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Em Ali Khodor, 75, looks through her damaged apartment into a destroyed building that was hit few weeks ago by an Israeli airstrikeafter she returns to the house, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
