The Philadelphia 76ers entered Friday night needing a win to avoid the dreaded 0-3 hole in their Round 1 series with the Boston Celtics. In order to get it done, they would need to play much faster and buckle down on defense. The result on Friday was a 102-94 loss as they weren’t able to achieve those mandates well enough to win.
Joel Embiid led the way with 30 points and 13 rebounds, Tobias Harris had 15 points and 15 rebounds, Josh Richardson had 17 points, and Shake Milton contributed 17 points.
With that said, here are three observations that stood out in this one:
The pace
Before the game, coach Brett Brown said he wanted the Sixers to play at a faster pace which is tough to do so without Ben Simmons, but they were able to achieve this objective by using Harris a bit more. Harris took the ball from the beginning and he continued to attack the basket from the get-go which caused Boston to scramble on defense and it opened up some more easy buckets for Embiid as well as the team getting to the foul line more as they were ice cold from the floor.
This also allowed Harris to show off some of his improved passing as there was one specific possession in the second quarter when Al Horford dropped into the paint and instead of trying to force a pass inside, he found Josh Richardson for an open triple as Boston reacted to Horford in the paint. The improved pace was a big factor in this game and it seemed to allow Harris and Richardson to make quicker decisions.
Embiid in different spots
This was another aspect of the game that Brown wanted to focus on with their offense. He did not want Embiid just plodding down and going into the paint. In this one, there were so many different spots where he got the ball as there were times he was attacking from the elbow, he worked as a roller, and that allowed him to be more aggressive. He paraded to the foul line and the aforementioned scrambling caused Celtics star Jayson Tatum to pick up three fouls in the first quarter alone. He had 22 and 10 and shot 10 free throws in the first half.
He struggled in the third quarter as he missed all three shots he took and then he picked up his fourth foul midway through the third that forced him to sit. Still, the Sixers were getting him the ball in different spots which allows him to be more aggressive on that end, he just was not converting. In the fourth, he attacked both Daniel Theis and Enes Kanter and he marched his way to the line throughout the entire quarter to give Philadelphia the lead. He did force too many shots late that allowed the Celtics to gut out the win in this one, however.
Defensive energy
This is where coach Brown deserves a lot of credit. He finally made the adjustment if having Embiid pressure the ball-handler off the pick-and-roll game and that forced Kemba Walker, Tatum, and Jaylen Brown into some tough shots. However, there were a few mishaps as Brown stepped into an easy jumper a few times off the pick and Walker then got into a groove in the second half due to the drop coverage, but that was mostly due to a few bad switches. Furkan Korkmaz was stuck on Walker and he immediately took Korkmaz to the basket for a layup.
Richardson was impressive on this end as he had a few out of this world blocks and his energy was infectious as some credit does need to go his way. There was one play with Boston looking to run away with it in the fourth where he stripped Theis which then led to an And-1 bucket the other way for him which then brought the Sixers back in the game. He was impressive in this one. [lawrence-related id=37046,37041,37038]