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NEW YORK – Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, the Philadelphia 76ers took a 3-0 lead in their opening-round series and advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals with as little fanfare, fuss or statistics as possible. . They couldn’t do it: Joel Embiid, James Harden and Tyrese Maxey combined to miss 39 shots, Pascal Siakam scored 34 points and the Toronto Raptors won Game 4 to extend the series.
Five days later, Philly will finish the job. The extra games took their toll, though — especially when Embiid found himself on the receiving end of a crooked elbow late in Game 6, a fractured collarbone that sidelined him for the first two games of the second round. The Sixers lost both, and bowed out to former pal Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in six games.
The lesson from Philly not capitalizing? Don’t play with your food. (Yes, Doc Rivers: It is “food”.)
When you have a chance to eliminate an overmatched opponent — even one that’s desperately trying to salvage its season and Embiid is dealing with an already disappointing postseason injury — find a way to get the job done and walk away. . The Sixers did just that with a four-game sweep of the Brooklyn Nets 96-88 in Saturday’s matchup at Barclays Center, allowing them to move on to bigger and better things — namely, the streak between the two. -The top-seeded Boston Celtics and the seventh-seeded Atlanta Hawks, with Boston holding a 2-1 lead.
The Sixers haven’t scored many style points in the postseason, largely on the strength of the cushion Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving built up in the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic. (Brooklyn went 13-15 with a negative point differential and 10 offense after the trade deadline.)
Game 4 had an MVP-shaped hole in the middle, both in the Nets’ strong start — 29 points in the first quarter, a 15-point, 7-rebound, 4-block first half for Brooklyn center Nick Claxton — and Philadelphia’s constant struggle to put the ball in the basket. . In the first three games of the series, the Sixers scored nearly 120 points out of 100 possessions with Embiid on the court and just 100 points out of 100 without him. Without him on Saturday, Brooklyn could return to a defensive scheme that gave up double-teams and triple-teams in the first three games, which helped limit Philly to just 39.6% shooting.
But as the misses piled up — Philly’s first 3-pointer didn’t come until midway through the second quarter — and the Nets led 48-40 at halftime, the Sixers remained confident they could turn things around. Around.
“Especially in the first half, we were getting good shots — I mean, we had 40 points, but we missed four turnovers, we missed some open threes,” Harden said after the game. “We were getting really good looks, and they only had 48 points, so we knew at some point our offense had to get going.”
“At halftime we were down, we weren’t playing well, and we felt like we were going to win the game,” Rivers said. “You can feel that way with our team.”
With the game tied early in the third, Philadelphia went on a 21-4 run that lasted more than eight minutes to erase a double-digit deficit. Harden made four of his 11 rebounds in that game. Maxey scored 7 points, including a huge turnover 3. Third-year center Paul Reed – He found out before game time that he was starting in place of Embiid, prompting him to ask the coach who told him. “Yes, really?” – He grabbed four offensive rebounds during his run, extending possessions and starting to figure out the inevitable on a small, angry and overtaxed Nets team.
“He said, ‘Look, let’s figure out a way to get three stops in a row, and let’s go out and get some easy baskets,'” said Tobias Harris, who regularly uses his size, strength and mid-range game. To hunt down a team-high 25 points and 12 rebounds against the smaller Brooklyn defense. “And I thought we were able to do that, make some buckets fall for us. But after we caught our leader, we found out. Just ‘we have to keep this going’.
They almost didn’t. Brooklyn made one last push to take a 72-70 lead early in the fourth on a turnaround jumper by Michal Bridges, a role-player-turned-Ironman who seemed to have finally run out of gas late in the series, shooting 6 for 18 in Game 4 and just 9 for 31 in the last two games. Philly then turned on the Jets to cross the finish line, outscoring the hosts 26-16 in the final 8:38, with two-way energizer DeAnthony Melton — who had been scoreless through the first three quarters — flowing. 12 of his 15 points to fuel the shutout.
“He was tough,” Maxey said of Melton. “And then, man, he hit some big shots. I think he hit two 3s in the fourth? I want to say – I could be wrong – but two 3s in the fourth. And then a media hit! I can’t remember the last time I saw Midi hit. I’m like, ‘That was great, man.’
Melton made the assist on Harris with 1:55 left to send the Nets into the early summer break, and the Sixers were in overtime before the Celtics and Hawks kicked him out. 2.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Rivers said. “We have to try to keep our rhythm, which is important, but we heal, and that’s very important.”
Mainly because of Embiid, the reigning MVP finalist and league leading scorer is desperate for a chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2001. Embiid will be available for the next round of starts, whenever that comes, Rivers said in a statement to reporters.
If Embiid isn’t available, the concerns that have surrounded the Sixers all season — and even among a small Brooklyn team — will be even more pressing. While Rivers and Harden insist that the former league MVP’s ongoing struggles haven’t changed their close looks, the fact remains that Harden shot 7-for-30 (23.3%) in the paint against Brooklyn. A level of internal futility that Philly simply cannot survive high-level competition. Especially if opponents can train more defensive focus against the Nets in Games 2 and 3 against the Nets, who shot just 6-for-20 from the field in Game 4.
Restoration and Second chance point Philly’s advantage against Brooklyn — who missed more than 36 percent and the Nets’ nearly 84 percent, according to Cleaning the Mirror, both of which led the league in the regular season — will likely dissipate. A Celtics team that ranked ninth overall in rebounding this season, or a Hawks team that was top 3 in that department since Quin Snyder took over as head coach. Boston’s defense, with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s phalanx of dangerous wings, or Atlanta’s, with Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, both capable of breaking coverages. a lot Pretty decent without Embiid instead of limiting Brooklyn.
The ugly wins that Philadelphia racked up in the last three games of the first round still count as much as the pretty ones. But the process of collecting them is going to be extremely difficult. Just ask the Sixers’ resident veteran wizard PJ Tucker.
“The playoff starts now,” Maxey said after the game. “I guess they didn’t start this drama series. He said it will start now.
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