When a team is down 0-3 in the NBA Playoffs while playing without their best player, there can sometimes be a human nature aspect that creeps in that asks “what if?” and think of all of the possibilities. For the Philadelphia 76ers, they need to fight through that in order to get a win on Sunday.
Playing without Ben Simmons in this series against the Boston Celtics, the Sixers have been missing one of the elite perimeter defenders in the game and that has hurt them against guys like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Kemba Walker. There is a lot that he brings to the table. On top of that, there have been missed opportunities in this series caused by turnovers, bad defense, and poor shooting.
However, coach Brett Brown doesn’t want his group to play that game or think about that at all. They need to just focus on winning on Sunday.
“You can drive yourself crazy playing the ‘what if’ game,” Brown explained. “You can do it with Ben Simmons. You can do it with I wish we didn’t have the turnover at the end of Game 3. You can do it in a bunch of ways, what I do know is this is life. That’s just the way it works so trying to get out in front of much of that stuff as you can, trying to anticipate the things that could haunt you as much as you can. The fragility of it all is what equals winning and losing and the separation is minute.”
Philadelphia showed off a lot of fight in Game 3, but the poor shooting did them in as they were not able to overcome shooting just 29.5% from the floor. The fact that the team could not make shots hurt Joel Embiid who did everything he could to lead the team to a win, but he did not get the necessary help.
“I’m proud of our fight in the last game,” said Brown. “I think that the defense that we played was good enough. I think that the offensive shot selection was good enough. I think that our rebounding was good enough. I think getting to the free-throw line the way that we did was good enough. I think instead of shooting 29%, if we could have actually shot 32%, you win by eight. I feel that there’s a lot of things we want to double down on and that’s where my head is at. That’s the message to the team and that will be the focus today.”
The important factor is that the Sixers have one last chance on Sunday to keep their season alive and that is where their focus needs to be.
“I try to avoid that and live in a situation of bottom line, you have a game today, how do I best coach this game, help my players win,” Brown said. “Through that approach, I feel far more well prepared and more focused on what I need to do.”
The Sixers and the Celtics tipoff at 1:00 p.m. EST inside the bubble in Orlando. [lawrence-related id=37099,37095,37092]