Deja vu? Not this time.

For the second time in two meetings, the Celtics squandered a double-digit second-half lead against the 76ers on Friday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. But unlike in Philadelphia’s season-opening road win at TD Garden, Boston was able to survive in a thriller.

The Sixers rallied from 24 points down to tie the game midway through the third quarter, then cut a 10-point deficit with three minutes remaining to one in the final seconds. Boston botched two inbounds plays with a chance to ice the game and missed three late free throws — including two by Josh Minott with 3.8 seconds to play — but Joel Embiid was unable to get a shot off on the final possession, allowing the Celtics to hang on for a 109-108 victory.

The victory was Boston’s third straight, pulling coach Joe Mazzulla’s squad back to .500 after an 0-3 start. It was the first loss of the season for the 76ers, who fell to 4-1. It also gave the Celtics a 1-0 record in NBA Cup group play, as this was the opening game of the in-season tournament for both teams.

“Just grit,” Jaylen Brown told Amazon Prime sideline reporter Cassidy Hubbarth after the game. “I think we just thugged it out. We made a bunch of mistakes, but we found a way to win in the end.”

Brown was responsible for some of those late miscues, with a missed foul shot and the last of his five turnovers giving Philadelphia life in the final moments. But he finished with a game-high 32 points on 13-of-19 shooting, six assists, three rebounds, one steal and one block to lead the Celtics.

Boston’s backcourt trio of Payton Pritchard, Derrick White and Anfernee Simons supplemented that scoring with a combined 49 points, even as Pritchard and White continued to struggle from 3-point range. Simons also was a plus-23 in his 29 minutes, headlining a strong all-around performance by the Celtics’ bench. All six C’s reserves who saw the floor finished as a minus-1 or better; all five of their starters were minus-3 or worse.

Philadelphia got 26 points, 14 rebounds and eight rebounds from Tyrese Maxey, 17-5-5 from rookie standout VJ Edgecombe and 20-4-6 from former NBA MVP Joel Embiid, who was far more impactful than he was in the teams’ first meeting on Oct. 22.

The Celtics will host Kevin Durant, Ime Udoka and the Houston Rockets on Saturday (8 p.m.) in the second end of a back-to-back.

Brown and Pritchard were surgical in the first quarter Friday night, going a perfect 10-for-10 on 2-point shots and flooding the Sixers with tough midrange makes.

Pritchard’s 3-point shot — his greatest asset during his Sixth Man of the Year campaign — has yet to materialize this season, but he’s been highly effective inside the arc, and not just on drives to the rim. He entered Friday shooting 77.8% on shots from 3-10 feet and 66.7% on 10-to-16-foot jumpers, per Basketball-Reference.

The Celtics deployed the same starting lineup for the third straight game, continuing to roll with Minott after his strong outings against New Orleans and Cleveland. The night started off well for Minott, who grabbed an offensive rebound on the opening possession and drew the tough assignment of guarding Maxey, but his two fouls on Embiid in the first five minutes earned the young wing a seat on the bench and an earful from Mazzulla.

Minott’s early hook also opened more minutes for the rookie Hugo Gonzalez, who’d logged just four total over the previous two games. Two first-quarter hustle plays by the 19-year-old set up White for open 3-pointers, and Gonzalez added a transition 3 of his own off a Queta block. (Minott later returned and played 22 minutes in the win, notching eight rebounds but missing all five of his field-goal attempts.)

The bench player who gave Boston the biggest lift, though, was Simons, who was an impact player at both ends. The Celtics outscored Philly by 17 points over Simons’ 15 first-half minutes, during which he tallied 14 points, went 3 for 6 from 3 — including a contested fadeaway as the shot clock expired — and blocked a driving dunk by the much larger Embiid.

Fueled by the production of Brown, Pritchard and Simons, the Celtics led by as many as 24 points in the first half. But a 23-4 Philadelphia run that stretched from late in the second quarter into the third cut Boston’s lead to 68-63.

Brown was on the court for that entire Sixers surge, and he struggled, turning the ball over three times and missing his only field-goal attempt. The Celtics star also grew increasingly frustrated with Courtney Kirkland’s officiating crew as Boston’s lead dwindled.

After Brown finished through contact at one end, then was called for a shooting foul while breaking up a 76ers fast break, he barked at the refs and was hit with a technical foul for arguing. Less than two minutes later, after another Brown turnover, the Sixers pulled even at 72-72.

Brown responded with seven quick points, including a deep three and a put-back, to shift momentum back toward Boston. Then, the Celtics got another jolt of energy from their bench.

Luka Garza chipped in with a midrange jumper and a corner 3, both off assists from Pritchard, but those were overshadowed by Gonzalez’s borderline maniacal hustle. In one eight-minute stretch, the Celtics’ first-round draft pick raced for a fast-break dunk; grabbed three offensive rebounds, including one on an inbounds pass; sprinted from the opposite side of the court to contest what initially looked like a wide-open Quentin Grimes dunk; and laid out for a loose ball as it rolled up the sideline.

Gonzalez finished as a plus-10 in his 15 minutes, which ended when he picked up his fifth foul — and absorbed a knee to the groin from Embiid in the process.

A 3-pointer by fellow reserve Xavier Tillman put Boston up 105-95 with 5:15 remaining, and another by Brown made it 108-98 with 3:11 to play, setting the stage for the frenetic finish. Philadelphia never led in the game.

The Celtics will play their second NBA Cup game next Friday at Orlando, then close out group play at home against Brooklyn on Nov. 21 and Detroit on Nov. 26. The three group winners and top-ranked wild card (based on group-play record, with head-to-head and point differential the primary tiebreakers) from each conference will advance to the single-elimination knockout rounds.

Boston qualified for the quarterfinals in the inaugural in-season tournament in 2023 and in last year’s newly rebranded NBA Cup, but it has never reached the semifinals, which, along with the championship game, are held at a neutral site in Las Vegas. Each player on this year’s NBA Cup champion will earn a $530,933 bonus, per Front Office Sports, with the runners-up receiving $212,373, the semifinalists $106,187 and the quarterfinalists $53,093.

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