The Philadelphia 76ers play host to the Boston Celtics in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference first-round playoffs in Orlando on Sunday.

The Celtics (3-0) haven't gotten much talk in terms of being a championship contender but this first-round performance is surely opening up some eyes and mouths. This club looked absolutely dominant in the regular season and that form has carried over into the playoffs. The Celtics won four of their final five regular-season games, with the only loss being the finale in which they rested their starters. That means they essentially have seven-straight wins, with all of them coming against playoff-caliber teams. That says a lot about this club and it's scary to think that they've been doing this with Gordon Hayward currently sidelined. The former All-Star suffered a bad ankle sprain early on in this series but ending this one quick could give him more time to heal for the second or third round. In any case, Marcus Smart will continue to start for him while Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum will continue to show their vast improvements on both ends of the floor.

The Sixers (0-3) don't look like the team that we saw at the beginning of the season. Losing Ben Simmons will do that but it's still not an excuse to be swept under the rug in the first-round of the playoffs. They still have guys like Joel Embiid, Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris and Al Horford. That's plenty of talent to compete but that competitiveness appears to be gone at this point. It's no fault of Embiid though, who's averaging 30 points and 13 rebounds per game in this series. Where they're really struggling is on the defensive end. It doesn't really appear that way in the scores but they haven't forced more than 10 turnovers in any of the three games and have struggled to produce steals or blocks with Simmons out. That has a lot of people wondering if they can avoid the sweep and one has to wonder if changes are on the horizon if that does end up happening.

If the Celtics do close things out here, they'll likely face the Toronto Raptors in the second round, who are well on their way to an easy first-round victory as well.