G52: Sixers @ Bucks 2/9/25 2pm ET ESPN - Hubie Brown's last game

[76ciology]

We kept forcing traps, even on Bobby Portis, but it became predictable, making it easy for the Bucks to find open shooters. Embiid wasn’t bad defensively, but Portis simply outworked our bigs. The entire team lacked energy, which is concerning given that the Bucks rank dead last in offensive rebounding. Grimes struggled defensively against Dame—he looked like a liability—but ironically, he was also our most engaged player. Eric Gordon was out of rhythm, missing open looks and throwing off-target passes. As for Jared Butler, he just isn’t an NBA player right now—he looked like he belongs in the G League.

[76ciology]

I’d also like to add this about the game—it felt like a preseason scrimmage, with us running basic experiments and vanilla schemes while the Bucks, being the more experienced team, paced themselves. The first half looked like an exhibition, just back-and-forth basketball. But in the second half, the Bucks stepped on the gas while we kept running the same predictable sets. They had already read our traps, leading to open threes, and we had no counters. To make matters worse, we even had a stretch where Jared Butler—who isn’t an NBA-caliber player—was running the offense, digging an even deeper hole for us.

Maybe we’ll figure it out one day, make the playoffs, and shock the league—like if the Wizards and Pelicans somehow made surprise runs and we met them in the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals. Who knows? The urgency was there, but we were completely out of sorts. I can’t even imagine what was going through our guys’ heads watching Jared Butler out there looking like Bronny James trying to run an NBA offense in the fourth quarter.

[76ciology]

Warriors run the same scheme against Dame (a lot of traps) and the Bucks tonight. Warriors beat the Bucks. Dame got like 38 pts but with 10 TOs.

[djsunyc]

Somebody has to get fired if we don't make the playoffs this year. The only acceptable scenario would be if Embiid shuts it down and gets knee surgery. Nurse should be culprit number 1. Morey is a bit of a tougher case since he has put together great young pieces despite sinking $100M into Embiid and PG for the foreseeable future.

coach is always the #1 fall guy.

but morey bungled the harden contract which led to maxed out paul george. that's tough.

[Negrodamus]

Somebody has to get fired if we don't make the playoffs this year. The only acceptable scenario would be if Embiid shuts it down and gets knee surgery. Nurse should be culprit number 1. Morey is a bit of a tougher case since he has put together great young pieces despite sinking $100M into Embiid and PG for the foreseeable future.

coach is always the #1 fall guy.

but morey bungled the harden contract which led to maxed out paul george. that's tough.

Somewhat fair, although I also think it was a team effort. I don't think anyone in the FO/ownership was keen on handing a max contract to Harden after he laid an egg in the playoffs.

PG was the only realistic option in free agency to max out and be willing to come here. I think Morey's finds (Yabu, McCain, Justin Edwards) afford him more time. Nurse has been running insane rotations and the guys are coming out flat/not playing perimeter defense.

One of my biggest condemnation of Morey is he has given Nurse the option of playing Reggie Jackson, Eric Gordon, and Kyle Lowry substantial minutes. Particularly on a team with 6'3 Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain.