The Philadelphia 76ers needed a win on Wednesday night to avoid an 0-2 hole in a series where they can’t escape to Wells Fargo Center and be with their fans. They needed to play with urgency and intensity in order to pull out this win.
Instead, they got hit with some haymakers, they wilted to the pressure, and they fell 128-101 to fall behind in the series. Boston’s Jayson Tatum had 33 points and he drilled eight shots from deep including a wild half-court shot at the end of the first quarter and then that spread to Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker, and even Enes Kanter made a triple.
One thing snowballed to another and it seemed like the Sixers sort of gave up. It was hard for them to play with the same intensity and the same urgency that they did in the beginning when they took a double-digit lead.
“I think it got deflating when their shot makers went bananas and I’m not going to scold their effort,” said coach Brett Brown. “I think you got to shake their hands to the Celtics on some of their shots. They really ended up making a lot of shots.”
In the second half, there were some questionable effort plays where it looked like they really were deflated. Shake Milton half jogged toward Boston’s Grant Williams who drilled a wing triple and it just got to be too much for them. Their spirit was crushed.
“There were a few possessions in the second half that you’d want to have back that I think the effort wasn’t at a level that it needed to be during the meat part of the game, I thought the guys were doing the best that they could,” Brown added. “Tatum is a handful, Kemba got it going, Jaylen had a great game, and they made shots and we had a hard time dealing with that.”
It’s simply human nature to have games and moments where the effort just is not there, especially when the opponent goes off the way Boston did on Wednesday. However, in the NBA Playoffs, it does not matter what is going on, you have to keep your focus.
“It’s hard when you play good defense and the opponent just keeps hitting tough shots, but it should never affect us,” said Joel Embiid who had 34 points and 10 rebounds. “You need to keep playing the same defense, be aggressive, just try to get stops. Sometimes, the offense is better than defense so you’ve just got to keep on going.”
The Celtics just have more shot makers than Philadelphia right now and that is the honest truth. That is no reason to hang your head, especially in the playoffs. Their season is essentially on the line and in Game 3, it’s going to have to be all about effort.
“It’s short memory,” says Josh Richardson. “We don’t need to be sad. We don’t need to play the victim. They beat us. It is what it is. We’ve got another game in two days.” [lawrence-related id=36984,36972,36969]