76ers vs OKC

[phillynative]

Are we too predictable down the stretch of close games?

yep

but most teams are tbf.

Its just give the ball to your best guy and hope he bails you out. It's all because people use to clown on Bron for passing up gamewinners imo.

I mean moreso are our players too predictable down the stretch compared to other top teams?

[HardenToSixers]

How many posts before we start talking about how past management lead us to losing this game to OKC?

well it's a pretty inevitable conclusion to most issues with this team

[76ciology]

Are we too predictable down the stretch of close games?

yep

but most teams are tbf.

Its just give the ball to your best guy and hope he bails you out. It's all because people use to clown on Bron for passing up gamewinners imo.

I mean moreso are our players too predictable down the stretch compared to other top teams?

I think its more of the TOs

Harden lead the top players on TOs in crunch time while only shooting 28% from field. Embiid is 3rd. 17.8 TO% 3rd highest in crunch time

Offensively 96ORtg is also bad in crunch time given how talented our team is. Nets is at 126 ORtg

With Harden and Embiid, we should be the most lethal team on crunch time on offense.

Offensively in crunch time we’re just comparable to the Bucks. And we’re way more talented than that.

[Jailblazers7]

To be fair, turnovers are a result of predictability. Embiid is too sloppy with his handle and passing making it fairly easy to scheme a double team against him. Harden has a limited arsenal at his age and struggles to deal with ball pressure.

On top of that, we have no off ball movement during isos so we always stagnate. Basically, we have a coach and 2 stars who fall back to their worst habits under pressure.

[76ciology]

Biid just need to get used to it just as Dirk has done for years before reaching that peak performance in the playoffs.

Biid has to see and experience all kinds of defense, know how to counter and get used to it.

Thats why Doc is focused on ways to get Biid the ball during preseason. Biid is shooting 51% in crunch time. We can get there. Just need to clean up those TOs

Btw, team is 23rd in shooting in crunch time at 40%

Some of our guys also need to get their feet wet. I believe we have run some plays for Tobi off screen for 3s and also had him shooting big 3s at the corner on crunch time.

[Mik317]

think its easier for wings in crunch time than bigs....

you figure refs aren't going to call fouls to decide it...so griftball is out lol.
They aren't going to let Biid get position and generally not enough time anyway.
Biid's handle is loose and as a 7'2 guy it has to be easier to strip him of it especially when you are allowed to be more physical.

I keep saying it but the Bucks got over the hill as Jrue was the main ballhandler and Middleton was randomly Playoff MJ in the clutch lol...which is harder to stop especially with Giannis lurking at all times...rather than Giannis throwing himself at the rim.

But then again Biid was the most clutch player last year via some random ass stat lol...so who **** knows

regardless the whole damn team especially our best two have to be smarter in general. I swear Biid hitting that shot in Toronto made him take the wrong lesson from it lol.

[mjkvol]

To be fair, turnovers are a result of predictability. Embiid is too sloppy with his handle and passing making it fairly easy to scheme a double team against him. Harden has a limited arsenal at his age and struggles to deal with ball pressure.

On top of that, we have no off ball movement during isos so we always stagnate. Basically, we have a coach and 2 stars who fall back to their worst habits under pressure.

A big part of the Embiid TO's is starting any action with him at the 3-pt. line. That's the definition of a turnover waiting to happen.

[Murray_17]

All games decided 5 pts or less in the last 5 minutes, not just final score

Still sounds random as hell, game could be 5 points close at 5 minutes and 10 at 4 minutes, like you could do the same stat with 5 points close at the 2 minutes and then declare those are the real close games. To not mention, it takes context out.

[Jay555]

yep

but most teams are tbf.

Its just give the ball to your best guy and hope he bails you out. It's all because people use to clown on Bron for passing up gamewinners imo.

I mean moreso are our players too predictable down the stretch compared to other top teams?

I think its more of the TOs

Harden lead the top players on TOs in crunch time while only shooting 28% from field. Embiid is 3rd. 17.8 TO% 3rd highest in crunch time

Offensively 96ORtg is also bad in crunch time given how talented our team is. Nets is at 126 ORtg

With Harden and Embiid, we should be the most lethal team on crunch time on offense.

Offensively in crunch time we’re just comparable to the Bucks. And we’re way more talented than that.

The reason Nets are high in ORtg is because they have KD and Kyrie who thrive in crunch time. I would argue they could outplay most if not all teams if the game is close.

On the other hand, Harden/Embiid are the opposite of that (at least based on past trend) which affects our ceiling in the playoffs.

As a long term Harden fan, I personally don’t see how Harden would improve it except maybe age could do something to it which I doubt. Of course, if Harden utilises his mid range more which is quite good instead of his drive and 3 pt shooting in crunch time, then I can see his crunch time performance improve a little bit percentage wise.

That leads to Embiid. Wing players have won most of the FMVP awards in the past decade or so. It’s pretty rare for a center to do it. That’s not to say he can not. Basically again, mid range would be key here. If Embiid can have a historic run this year, then there is a chance. By that, I mean his mid range would need to be deadly in crunch times come playoffs because that’s how these playoffs are won. See Kawai, KD etc. Lebron/Curry are a bit different coz Lebron has freakish athleticism/talent and Curry is the goat of 3pt shooting.

Other than the stars, your role players who have clutch genes in them would also help a ton. See Steve Kerr, Robert Horry etc. I personally think Melton has that in him which is great for us and I hope Melton gets to finish the game no matter what. Because he gives us D and much needed 3 when it counts. I don’t see Tobi and Maxey doing much in crunch times.

For a deep payoff run, the odds are against us from our players and coaching staff standpoint. But anything can happen. All it takes is for Harden and Embiid to finally figuring it out and Doc not being a weak link as usual.

[Murray_17]

Read on Twitter

This is just bad defensive design, we went from leaving a lot of guys open from 3, to panicking at bad shooters. The worst part is that stuff like this also leads to a lot of fouls, which were a problem last night too.

Just stupidity all around

[Jay555]

Read on Twitter

This is just bad defensive design, we went from leaving a lot of guys open from 3, to panicking at bad shooters. The worst part is that stuff like this also leads to a lot of fouls, which were a problem last night too.

Just stupidity all around

For starters, drop Maxey or Tucker and insert Melton in the starting lineup. The starting five wad had yesterday has been proven to be **** defensively and yet Doc just keeps putting that out thinking it's the ultimate lineup. There is a reason we had that winning streak with Melton in it.

[phillynative]

To be fair, turnovers are a result of predictability. Embiid is too sloppy with his handle and passing making it fairly easy to scheme a double team against him. Harden has a limited arsenal at his age and struggles to deal with ball pressure.

On top of that, we have no off ball movement during isos so we always stagnate. Basically, we have a coach and 2 stars who fall back to their worst habits under pressure.

Exactly this is what I was going with it. You hit the nail with Embiid and Harden. When you add Tobias and Maxey to the mix, you have two guys that aren't exactly shot creators either. Tobias struggles to get separation from his defender. Maxey to me has always been a slasher who added a pull up game. When you cut off Maxeys initial move he struggles(he will improve still a work in progress).This is why the offense stagnant so much as well.

I think Embiid, Harden and Maxey can get better with more time and familiarity as a trio but than you also have to take into account the roster build and who ends games with them in close games. I think surrounding Embiid, Harden and Maxey with 3and D athletes and growing Maxey into being able to attack the basket and make the right decisions with the ball seems like the best way to go from here. Embiid , Harden and Doc aren't going to change all we can hope for is that they tighten up turnovers and that Maxey continues to grow and becomes the legit 2nd gun and sometime 1 when he's hot.

The roster build is the most concerning imo we came into the season without a 5th starter. Tucker(old) Matisse (O.liability) Niang(D.Liability) Melton(Too small next to Maxey).

[DCasey91]

I swear you simply like to be a contrarian sometimes

Doc stinks as a coach. Just tonight he had Maxey on SGA; he took Biid out too soon, he featured Trez on offense during his stint, and then as we got it closer the first time spamming Biid was the actual answer...we went away from it.

He constantly made the wrong choice. Sometimes yeah a move doesn't work out...but all of them? His lack of adjustments and general lack of a second idea has cost his teams time and time again throughout his entire career..going back to Orlando ffs. Is it all on him? Of course not... no ONE person holds responsibility for anything regarding basketball...HOWEVER his job is to put the team in the correct spots to overcome down nights from players, hot nights from opponents...that means putting the right guys out there for example...something Doc has always struggled with. He has lived off of his ONE ring for decades now and even then he should have two but because he couldn't overcome the loss of Kendric **** Perkins he doesn't.

I cannot believe we are even having this discussion honestly. Ben got rightfully shat on for the Hawks series but I still say havign Danny on Trae in game one was the actual turning point....it allowed the Hawks to believe they could hang. Also lost in Ben's implosion was the fact that dude had Seth Curry on Huerter as he was killing us in Game 7. Yeah Biid could have been better with the ball. Not denying that. Yeah Ben could have had some balls....totally agree. I am in no way removing the players from the equation here especially the best players...but the fact remains that Doc failed at his own job as well...and it is a constant theme throughout his career. You keep bringing up Kawhii and PG bad shooting night as this teflon defense when it shouldn't even come to that if Doc would have just not played Trez....he gives the other team life and confidence and makes his own teams have to clean up his mess and that just doesn't always work out. Its been so long but I wonder how many games that Celtics team had to grit out due to Doc overplaying his hand...i remember a lot of clutch shots had to be made...which is nice but was it necessary?

And yeah coaches don't get fired unless the best players want them gone...but there is no way you go into next season with Doc if you are a serious franchise. Even under your dream world of him actually doing a good job...we are at the stage in which our only remaining move before the rebuild is to fire the coach anyway....

I’m glad someone is being honest here about Docs performance. He costs us game 1, and game 7 we had a big swing with Thybulle in running +9, with a comfortable chance until that fateful decision to bring Seth back on.

Literally watch that last quarter. You can actually see the whole momentum shift when he made the change in the dying mins. The red ranga was literally shooting over a kid for comparison sake. It was awfully stupid.

It was from his own decision making skills. Yes Ben sh*t the bed but before that Harris missed two easy bunnies but you wouldn’t read about. He got the scapegoat treatment to an unfair level imo where the blame should have been shared around. The loss was happening before the missed dunk fwiw.

Doc is a perennial underachiever with high end talent when it matters it’s been the case since he started coaching. What’s worse is he never changes and stuck in his old bad ways.

Watch game 7 against the Lakers for reference which is now well over a decade now. He left the Celtics bench on and they got d*cked…. He’s still doing that today lol

Should have been fired after the Hawks series.

[eyeatoma]

I'm sure this will definitely stoke the flames.

Read on Twitter

[DCasey91]

It isn’t just Maxey it’s the starting setup that doesn’t work.

What’s interesting is the good/great results with Melton/Milton. They have length on the perimeter and subtracted our awful rebounding skillset all around in exchange with a high % of steals.

Maxey solves a big problem on the bench units too. It kills two birds with one stone.

Team defence at the end of the day still wins championships last time I checked.

[Murray_17]

For starters, drop Maxey or Tucker and insert Melton in the starting lineup. The starting five wad had yesterday has been proven to be **** defensively and yet Doc just keeps putting that out thinking it's the ultimate lineup. There is a reason we had that winning streak with Melton in it.

In that clip melton goes on a unnecesary close up of a bad shooter two times, Embiid also does this on the first play.

Obviously Maxey-Harden is a bad combination on the wings, but i think the rest of the team is overcompensating and panicking over anyone being open.

[DCasey91]

yep

but most teams are tbf.

Its just give the ball to your best guy and hope he bails you out. It's all because people use to clown on Bron for passing up gamewinners imo.

I mean moreso are our players too predictable down the stretch compared to other top teams?

I think its more of the TOs

Harden lead the top players on TOs in crunch time while only shooting 28% from field. Embiid is 3rd. 17.8 TO% 3rd highest in crunch time

Offensively 96ORtg is also bad in crunch time given how talented our team is. Nets is at 126 ORtg

With Harden and Embiid, we should be the most lethal team on crunch time on offense.

Offensively in crunch time we’re just comparable to the Bucks. And we’re way more talented than that.

You’ll die on a hill if you want to go down Embiid ball in the stretch. Harden which I’m a fan of has a huge history of losing all of his touch and passing skills under intense pressure.

Curry isn’t anywhere near the distributor or passer as Harden is but both go full DERP mode in late game situations it’s just that Harden does it more often.

[Bum Adebayo]

I already said it some weeks ago, it's pure stupidity not to start Melton, he is out 3rd best player at worst, let Maxey come off the bench and use his offensive game against worse bench defenders, result will be better and his traffic cone defense will suck slightly less.

[Jailblazers7]

As long as Presti doesn’t start sitting Shai, I think OKC will actually be a play-in team. They have the 3rd easiest remaining strength of schedule and they’re starting to figure it out as a group. I’d love to see a Memphis/OKC first round series.

[the_process]

Even though it is absolutely the right thing to do, bringing Maxey off the bench is sure to cause Klutch to start bitching and moaning all over the place.