Boston in the 2nd round. How do the 76ers win the series?

[76ciology]

Read on Twitter

[Mik317]

but we aren't equal tho.

Thats the thing you seem to not understand. We aren't the favorite; we aren't the defending ECC; they have the exact counter to our strengths in length and athleticism. You have been treating them like they are the Hawks. This is a squad in which the entire roster has been through wars with each other and the core 4 have been together for years. That alone explains the cohesion they have versus the chaos we have.

Sure its would be great if everyone could just go full Jordan and dominate no matter what but thats not how any of this works. There is some mental aspect to things no doubt but at the same time the game is about if your strengths can overpower the other teams...Biid is comprimised but even then, it would be most FTs and 2pters against their barrage of 3s....in which we would need them to go cold for long enough to win games....which is difficult when we either have slow closeouts or brain dead no closeouts due to roster construction and on the offensive end too often uncreative ways to get shots...its going to be an uphill battle that even if everyone was the robots you think them to be may not be enough to overcome said differences.

Boston is the better team as whole if only due to being together longer IMO. That explains their mental advantage more than our players just not wanting to win that much IMO.

[Sixerscan]

The funny part is the Sixers are the ones that have actually won the close games where you figure stuff like that would matter most.

[Jailblazers7]

Maxey is rightfully getting heat for his offensive performance but he deserves some credit for holding up defensively wayyy better than I thought he would. This was the evolution I was hoping for where he’s leveraging his quickness to be a good point of attack defender. Still falls asleep off ball but that seems to be a contagion on this team.

My biggest hope for game 5 is that we get the Maxey game. He can single-handedly win a game & he’s hasn’t shot well all series. The formula imo is:

1. Ride Embiid hard in the first half when he’s fresh
2. Maxey 3rd quarter takeover
3. Harden lands the plane on the 4th to seal it

[Eyeamok]

but we aren't equal tho.

Thats the thing you seem to not understand. We aren't the favorite; we aren't the defending ECC; they have the exact counter to our strengths in length and athleticism. You have been treating them like they are the Hawks. This is a squad in which the entire roster has been through wars with each other and the core 4 have been together for years. That alone explains the cohesion they have versus the chaos we have.

Sure its would be great if everyone could just go full Jordan and dominate no matter what but thats not how any of this works. There is some mental aspect to things no doubt but at the same time the game is about if your strengths can overpower the other teams...Biid is comprimised but even then, it would be most FTs and 2pters against their barrage of 3s....in which we would need them to go cold for long enough to win games....which is difficult when we either have slow closeouts or brain dead no closeouts due to roster construction and on the offensive end too often uncreative ways to get shots...its going to be an uphill battle that even if everyone was the robots you think them to be may not be enough to overcome said differences.

Boston is the better team as whole if only due to being together longer IMO. That explains their mental advantage more than our players just not wanting to win that much IMO.

Absolutely the Celtics are the better team. And everything you say is basically true. And if I had to bet on who is going to win the series I would bet on Boston. Yet here we are tied at 2-2. I say release the Kraken which is Joel Embiid and let the chips fall where they may. Embiid you can't let Al Horford do you like that and block your shot multiple times. Have you no shame? It's time to take the bull by the horns and go crazy Mr. MVP and let the chips fall where they may.

[AI_Efficiency]

I think to start the season if you told me that we would be in a best of 3 set of games against the team favored to win it all, I would take that result. Boston seems like the better team, but we have some non-trivial chance, and I think that is almost all you can ask for (at least with the roster we have).

[Eyeamok]

Maxey is rightfully getting heat for his offensive performance but he deserves some credit for holding up defensively wayyy better than I thought he would. This was the evolution I was hoping for where he’s leveraging his quickness to be a good point of attack defender. Still falls asleep off ball but that seems to be a contagion on this team.

My biggest hope for game 5 is that we get the Maxey game. He can single-handedly win a game & he’s hasn’t shot well all series. The formula imo is:

1. Ride Embiid hard in the first half when he’s fresh
2. Maxey 3rd quarter takeover
3. Harden lands the plane on the 4th to seal it

Why the hell not ! Why the hell not !

[Zumramania]

I think to start the season if you told me that we would be in a best of 3 set of games against the team favored to win it all, I would take that result. Boston seems like the better team, but we have some non-trivial chance, and I think that is almost all you can ask for (at least with the roster we have).

And the coach we have...

[mjkvol]

You can’t just keep hand waving away reality with “when everything else is equal.” Nothing is ever equal the teams have different strengths/weakness, roster composition, strategies, etc. Player emotion & mentality is an important factor but it’s insane to point to that as the only thing that ever matters.

When theoretically two teams would play 100 times and the outcome would be about 50 wins for one and about 50 for the other, they're roughly equal in ability.

Note these two teams have now played four times and the series is tied 2-2, a microcosm of the above.

At no point have I said mental/emotional factors are "the only thing that ever matters" -- I said they primarily determine the outcome when teams are roughly equal in talent. The Sixers can easily beat the Houston Rockets without having an emotional advantage -- they aren't going to beat the Boston Celtics without one, however.

The team with the emotional advantage will win the series, whether that comes from home-court advantage and what that does for them emotionally, and/or other mental/emotional factors intrinsic to the team, such as leadership, drive, will, resiliency, etcetera.

But your posts continuously express that you think the mental/emotional factors are all that matters, and then you say exactly that right afterward - "the team with the emotional advantage will win the series".

Mik beat me to it, but the fact is that the teams are not evenly matched - the Celtics are deeper and have precisely the kind of long, athletic wings that give the Sixers problems. They have also had their core together longer, they have grown and gone through the playoff wars together, so they have far more cohesion.

And this doesn't even account for the game to game adjustments in scheme and rotations that teams make in short playoff series', which require counter adjustments. You act as if because team records are close that it's just a matter who is more "emotionally ready" with the proper "drive" in each game.

Is that stuff important? Sure, but being well prepared, having made the proper adjustments, and executing your plan as a team and individually are a hell of a lot bigger factors in determining winners and losers in these games than who is the bigger dawg.

Hell, if all it took was being more "emotionally prepared", there would be psychologists on the sideline coaching these teams instead of basketball coaches.

[Ferry Avenue]

but we aren't equal tho.

Thats the thing you seem to not understand. We aren't the favorite; we aren't the defending ECC; they have the exact counter to our strengths in length and athleticism. You have been treating them like they are the Hawks. This is a squad in which the entire roster has been through wars with each other and the core 4 have been together for years. That alone explains the cohesion they have versus the chaos we have.

Sure its would be great if everyone could just go full Jordan and dominate no matter what but thats not how any of this works. There is some mental aspect to things no doubt but at the same time the game is about if your strengths can overpower the other teams...Biid is comprimised but even then, it would be most FTs and 2pters against their barrage of 3s....in which we would need them to go cold for long enough to win games....which is difficult when we either have slow closeouts or brain dead no closeouts due to roster construction and on the offensive end too often uncreative ways to get shots...its going to be an uphill battle that even if everyone was the robots you think them to be may not be enough to overcome said differences.

Boston is the better team as whole if only due to being together longer IMO. That explains their mental advantage more than our players just not wanting to win that much IMO.

Over 82 games whatever physical differences you're specifying there resulted in a mere 3 more wins for the Celtics, and the series right now is tied 2-2, thus suggesting the teams aren't all that different in terms of ability. Moreover, the bolded portion above is one kind of mental/emotional advantage of the ilk I'm talking about here.

And I've never said here our players are "not wanting to win that much." What I've said is that they don't appear to possess the will necessary to advance beyond the second round. When they reach the point that they're playing a team as good as they are physically -- i.e., in the second round, as opposed to the Brooklyns of the world in the first round -- they get outdriven and outwilled even though talent-wise they're roughly as good. Surely they want to win, but the intestinal fortitude required to pull it off appears to be lacking.

The in-your-face gesture by Tucker toward Embiid yesterday was no random occurrence. Tucker was trying to ignite exactly what's been lacking in this team for the past several years -- a fire within its leader and best player that spearheads the team and inspires it, in a critical game that had a good chance of getting this team ousted from the playoffs exactly where it always does. Tucker has his finger on the pulse of what's going on here, make no mistake.

[Jailblazers7]

My least favorite thing about this discussion is that I agree that we are a bunch of mental softies who lose composure too often but you make the argument in the most annoying fashion devoid of all context. I can’t even tell if you like the sport of basketball because all you ever post about is the soap opera dynamics of this dumbass team.

[Ferry Avenue]

My least favorite thing about this discussion is that I agree that we are a bunch of mental softies who lose composure too often but you make the argument in the most annoying fashion devoid of all context. I can’t even tell if you like the sport of basketball because all you ever post about is the soap opera dynamics of this dumbass team.

Until they get past the second round with some semblance of the intestinal fortitude required, there's no sense in posting about anything else. Everything else is irrelevant. It's fun to read and certainly interesting, but it isn't where the rubber meets the road.

[Murray_17]

My least favorite thing about this discussion is that I agree that we are a bunch of mental softies who lose composure too often but you make the argument in the most annoying fashion devoid of all context. I can’t even tell if you like the sport of basketball because all you ever post about is the soap opera dynamics of this dumbass team.

Again, it's a way to talk about the game without having to analyze anything in it.

It's literally Skip Bayless but with a lot of paragraphs that repeat the same idea several times in different ways

[Ferry Avenue]

My least favorite thing about this discussion is that I agree that we are a bunch of mental softies who lose composure too often but you make the argument in the most annoying fashion devoid of all context. I can’t even tell if you like the sport of basketball because all you ever post about is the soap opera dynamics of this dumbass team.

Again, it's a way to talk about the game without having to analyze anything in it.

It's literally Skip Bayless but with a lot of paragraphs that repeat the same idea several times in different ways

You're just stuck analyzing what's irrelevant, sorry to say. The stuff you're analyzing distinguishes the Sixers from the Houston Rockets, certainly, but it doesn't distinguish them from the Celtics.

Ask PJ Tucker what he thinks this team needs to beat Boston, and I suspect his answer would be rooted in mental/emotional factors. Otherwise there would've been no impetus to get in Embiid's face yesterday, at perhaps the most critical moment of the entire season.

[Murray_17]

You're just stuck analyzing what's irrelevant, sorry to say. The stuff you're analyzing distinguishes the Sixers from the Houston Rockets, certainly, but it doesn't distinguish them from the Celtics.

Ask PJ Tucker what he thinks this team needs to beat Boston, and I suspect his answer would be rooted in mental/emotional factors. Otherwise there would've been no impetus to get in Embiid's face yesterday, at perhaps the most critical moment of the entire season.

The stuff i'm discussing is important because it let you understand the weakness and strengths of both teams and how they can use one to exploit the other.

Your theory only serves to say, x team wants it more, therefore team x win. Sorry to say, but the fact you wrote more than one paragraph with that, it's funny to me.

Call me when for example you are willing to discuss how the Suns adjusted to win two games without Chris Paul, outside of saying "KD and Booker imposed their will".

I can be wrong in my analysis, i'm a simple fan, i prefer it than to write generalities and make them pass as profound analisis tbh.

[HardenGoat]

Ferry’s Pavlovian dogs will get it done tomorrow. Book it!!!

[HardenGoat]

I think in Ferry’s defense he has a point about Tucker. If you analyze the offensive skill set he brings, which most fans do, you would come to the conclusion he sucks and isn’t worth a mid level exception, let alone 10 mill x3. But the team is stating otherwise. He is providing the playoff gut fuel and is making a big impact we can’t even see. Obviously you need star talent though and a coach that can capitalize. There is a chess match happening on and off the court. But Tucker is exactly what the team was missing. Heck he might even be what’s turning the clock back on Harden.

[Jailblazers7]

I think in Ferry’s defense he has a point about Tucker. If you analyze the offensive skill set he brings, which most fans do, you would come to the conclusion he sucks and isn’t worth a mid level exception, let alone 10 mill x3. But the team is stating otherwise. He is providing the playoff gut fuel and is making a big impact we can’t even see. Obviously you need star talent though and a coach that can capitalize. There is a chess match happening on and off the court. But Tucker is exactly what the team was missing. Heck he might even be what’s turning the clock back on Harden.

Oh, I totally agree PJ has been an awesome presence on this team and is earning every penny of his contract right now. I don’t disagree with Ferry on everything I just thinks he’s annoying lol

[Eyeamok]

I have a question and maybe one of you guys/girls can answer. Jaylen Brown has taken over defending Harden from Smart. I have seen on at least 3 occasions Harris will get the ball and just back down Smart for an easy lay up. Why won't they run that play more often? Defensively Smart has nothing for Harris.

[HardenGoat]

I think in Ferry’s defense he has a point about Tucker. If you analyze the offensive skill set he brings, which most fans do, you would come to the conclusion he sucks and isn’t worth a mid level exception, let alone 10 mill x3. But the team is stating otherwise. He is providing the playoff gut fuel and is making a big impact we can’t even see. Obviously you need star talent though and a coach that can capitalize. There is a chess match happening on and off the court. But Tucker is exactly what the team was missing. Heck he might even be what’s turning the clock back on Harden.

Oh, I totally agree PJ has been an awesome presence on this team and is earning every penny of his contract right now. I don’t disagree with Ferry on everything I just thinks he’s annoying lol

trust me, it was hard for me to support anything he said after his first post about Harden coming over. But forgiveness is the key to freedom. Perhaps he will be happy when Harden helps us win more games going forward.