The Boston Celtics missed an opportunity in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals by losing to the Philadelphia 76ers 119-115 in a game where Joel Embiid was inactive. With Embiid on the sidelines at the TD Garden on Monday night, he watched James Harden lead the way for their team in a huge way.

The Celtics didn’t have any answers for Harden. He finished the night with 45-points on 57/50/100 shooting splits. Harden was hitting all of his shots and had every Celtics player beat with his first-step outside of Marcus Smart. I’m not saying that Smart was flawless in defending Harden, but step-for-step there isn’t anybody on the Celtics who can keep up with Harden like Smart can.

Defensively, the Celtics run best when they’re switching. The versatility, camaraderie, and athleticism that Boston has 1-5 on the court is truly something special. But when it comes to defending an elite player like Harden, the defensive scheme might need to be re-evaluated. NBA Sixth Man of the Year Malcolm Brogdon explains that this method of defense is nothing new for Harden and it’s likely not going to work moving forward in the series.

“They got James Harden and James Harden’s seen every coverage there is in the NBA. At one point he was a top-two player in the league for those years in Houston. He’s seen every coverage, he’s had teams guard him in every way, so switching is nothing new, and I thought honestly he did a good job at the end playing poised, controlling the game, making the right reads, and they relied on him and he came through.”

AlHorford played well, finishing with 11-points on 62.5 percent shooting from the field and grabbed six rebounds. He also had three blocks. Although none of the blocks were on Harden, Horford defended him well in short spurts, even on what turned out to be the game-winning shot with under 10 seconds left.

Horford explains defending Harden in the final moment of Game 1.

“Try to guard him as best as I could… he probably surprised me how quick he shot the ball, I figured he would have tried to spend a little more time before going. But I felt like I was right there, contested.”

For the record, Al was step-for-step in that final moment with Harden and there wasn’t much else he could do to defend Harden without fouling him. It’s worth mentioning that if Embiid was playing, it would be difficult for Harden to take 30 shots and it probably won’t happen again in this series.

The Celtics need to limit Harden. One way of doing so is to give Grant Williams more minutes. I talked about it in a previous article, how Grant is one of the top defenders on this team and should be seeing more minutes than Sam Houser because he offers you more on the defensive end. The other way to limit Harden is for Smart to mirror him step-for-step.

Boston hosts Philadelphia on Wednesday for Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

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