Jaylen Brown and the Celtics nearly let another winnable game against the 76ers slip away, but they held on late and claimed their third straight victory with a 109-108 win, improving to .500 for the first time this season and 1-0 in the NBA Cup’s Group B play.

Here are the takeaways.

That was close.

The last few breathless seconds of Friday’s game had an uncomfortable sense of inevitability to them.

With the Celtics up by eight and 1:30 remaining, a 76ers team that seems to have embodied the Never Give Up spirit of Tyrese Maxey this season instead of the They Always Beat Us spirit of Joel Embiid began to chip away, and fate started to tip in their favor.

Of course Maxey buried a massive 3-pointer.

Of course Derrick White, who struggled enormously once again, missed a makeable floate

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