The Celtics badly needed this statement win, and indeed so did the entire community of Boston fans, everywhere! After the terrible tragedy of the Bruins playoff failure and Celtics' blowing game 1 of this series (when they managed to lose despite the absence of Philly's NBA MVP Joel Embiid), another loss might have led to riots in the streets!
OK, I'm - mostly - kidding about that last part. But it would have been awful nonetheless. As it stands, the odds are that the Celtics will win this series - as long as they resist the occasional tendency to lay eggs.
Does this mean that the Sixers are actually better without Embiid and he doesn't deserve the MVP? I wouldn't go that far. He's a great player and a deserving winner. But it's striking that the gap between the team's performance with and without him is much smaller than one would expect.