The Philadelphia 76ers dropped Game 1 to the Boston Celtics on Monday for a few fixable reasons. They turned the ball over too much and they allowed too many offensive rebounds. The Celtics were able to score 21 points off Philadelphia’s turnovers and they scored 16 off the offensive rebounds.
Boston used their athletes all over the floor to bother Philadelphia in a way where they could not get into a rhythm on that end of the floor. To that point, they got into their head and the Sixers could not react correctly and stay poised in their plan of attack.
“The reason for it? I think we were rushing a bit trying to figure out how we were going to maneuver it through some of the defensive schemes,” said Tobias Harris. “So organization as a whole offensively wasn’t great. Our spacing wasn’t where we want it to be. Other than that if you look at the full-on game, I would say turnovers and offensive rebounds for them led to too many points that they were able to get that hurt us down the end.”
Shake Milton had three of those turnovers in his first career playoff start and much like in the seeding games opener against the Indiana Pacers, it looked like he struggled a bit with the pressure Boston threw at him. To his credit, he adjusted and improved as the game went on, but he knows he needs to be better.
“It’s part of the game,” said Milton. “Maybe it’s organization. Maybe it’s guys just didn’t feel comfortable throwing the ball in certain situations or whatever the case may be. The fact that we’ve watched film and gone over it and we see ways that guys can improve on getting open and making it easier on guys who are throwing the ball, I think is going to help us a lot.”
Now, what about getting the ball to Joel Embiid? The big fella had 26 points and 16 rebounds on Monday which is a good final stat line, but when your best player only gets 15 shots, that needs to change. Especially with Ben Simmons out with the injury.
“I feel like when you study the tape and the ball gets to the wing, they bend you over, they smother you with pressure, they bring three other players from one side of the floor, and the person guarding Joel is guarding Joel so they smother him from that angle,” coach Brett Brown explained. “The large majority of our turnovers came from the wing to the post. From the top to the post, you have a little bit more opportunity, but it’s still congested.”
Sure, it will be congested. Embiid is the best player in this series. So it’s going to be all on him to really carry Philadelphia throughout the entirety of the playoffs.
“Obviously, they were showing a huge crowd towards him,” Harris added. “There are different things we’ll touch on to be able to open up the floor a little bit more so we’re able to get good looks. Obviously, Joel is a huge focal point for us. He creates a lot of attention when he’s out there playing and he has the ball in his hands so us finding ways to get him some easier looks, it will only come from us being more organized and having a good flow. If we were able to get some higher percentage looks, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Just some little things we can work on and get better at.”
For Brown, he wants things to be a bit quicker. The Sixers need to make much quicker decisions on the offensive end of the floor to ensure their success of getting the ball to the big fella and there are other ways it can get done. Such as pick-and-roll action or setting him up at the high post and letting him work from there.
“The thing with Joel that interests me the most is anything that’s slow,” Brown added. “Anything that’s static is easier for them to guard Joel Embiid and so I want to get him there as much as you can. Just not the way at times it was done, it’s too easy to tee off on him. You can roll him into the post, you could elbow isolation and let him back down, but to always plunk him there and it’s slow and static. It doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t minimize the volume of touches or the frequency that we want him in the paint area, it’s just how are you going to do it?”
The Sixers will move on to Game 2 on Wednesday to continue this playoff series. [lawrence-related id=36933,36928,36920]