Luka Garza, Ron Harper Jr. and Baylor Sherman started a combined 29 games all season.
Joe Mazzola, a 2026 Coach of the Year finalist, started the Boston Celtics’ season-ending seventh-game loss on Saturday night with all three in the starting lineup once NBA starter Jayson Tatum was ruled out before game time with a calf injury.
Tatum, who returned in March after tearing his Achilles tendon nearly a year earlier, injured his other leg during Boston’s Game 6 loss on April 30, forcing him to sit out the day-to-day.
Without Tatum, Mazzola decided to also bench starting center Neemias Coeta in place of Garza, and place Harper Jr. and Sherman on the wings in place of Tatum and sharpshooter Sam Hauser.
“I thought there were some things we saw tactically that we wanted to test.” Mazzola said In defense of his bizarre five-game start in Game 7. “Obviously to give the series a little different feel and take advantage of the roster that we had, take advantage of players that can impact the play and so forth. So that was great by the guys, and we fell short.”
There was a stretch where Sherman started over Hauser during the season, so this change wasn’t surprising considering the latter had struggled — shooting less than 35 percent from three during Games 2-6 — for most of the series.
Sherman also made 20 of the 29 starts listed above.
But Harper, who made 11 appearances in three seasons heading into the 2025-26 season, started three of his 29 games during the regular season, only playing the first four minutes of Game 7.
Garza, who made six starts all year, averaged nearly eight minutes per game in this series and scored just over eight in Game 7 while starting in center for Queta, who finished the series with a playoff-best 73.5 effective field goal percentage and one of its most efficient rebounding with 8.6 boards on just 21.7 per contest.
In the seventh game, Queta scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in just over 32 minutes, shooting 7-for-8 from the floor.
The Celtics, known primarily for their live-by-three, die-by-three style of play, shot 13-for-49 from deep, which Mazzola also defended after the game.
“I love the look we got. I love the process we did. I hate the result.” He said.
Thanks to the loss, Philly will take its momentum to Madison Square Garden in the Eastern Conference semifinals starting Monday in a seven-game series with the Knicks.
The 76ers, who lost to the Knicks in six games during the first round of the 2024 playoffs, have not reached the Eastern Conference Finals since 2001, where they reached the NBA Finals behind Allen Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo.
The Knicks are likely to reach the tournament finals twice in a row, something they have not done since 1999 and 2000.