R2G4 - 76ers vs Celtics - May 7 3:30pm ET ESPN

[Negrodamus]

They talked about Jaylen Brown disappearing for stretches tonight on Inside the NBA. If the Celtics lose this series, Brown has to be gone. All three of the former players think he's conceded and Kenny went so far as to say Tatum is the Jordan to Brown's Pippen. That would make me nuts if I'm the guy who is scoring efficiently while Tatum is shooting like trash.

[spikeslovechild]

Watch on YouTube

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I do think the Sixers should give him a call and mentor Maxey. Dude was so nice inside 2:30 - 2:55 wow that was filth.

Maxey isn't in the same strastosphere as Parker right now. He needs to learn how to find those small spaces inside the way Parker always could. Maxey takes it right at defenders, and if he can't win with his speed he has nowhere else to go. Major work in progress, and he could use a guy like Parker to mentor him. Also, Maxey has abandoned his midrange game and that little floater. Not sure if that's on purpose from Rivers and Cassell's coaching, but it's something he needs to get back to.

Agreed. I definitely think he'll tirelessly work on improving his game in that regard in the offseason.

The question is, do we hold off on extending him until he takes the next step in elevating his game or do we just bite the bullet and extend him now? Or just look to move him for the right price?

Depends on what his ask is.

If he wants a rookie max no reason to wait until his contract expires. If he is willing to settle for a bit more than Sexton money do the extension today

[HardenToSixers]

**** the haters, **** adam silver, **** the colangelos, **** al horford, **** everyone. that's a big win. let's go win game 5 and bring home a ship for Joel and Philly

[Jay555]

**** the haters, **** adam silver, **** the colangelos, **** al horford, **** everyone. that's a big win. let's go win game 5 and bring home a ship for Joel and Philly

Except Refs would come out gun blazing and call 3 quick fouls on Harden or Embiid.

[Jay555]

Again we need guards initated offence to beat the Celtics with Biid used as a roll man/defensive big.

Obviously, the coaching staff knows Embiid on the elbow does not work against Celtics. Doc confirmed that in his interview that James got spacing today and Biid tried to be in the middle rather than the elbow.

At least they knew what would work and I will give them that.

Now stick to your plan and finish the job off. Here's hoping Harden has a couple more masterpiece left in him in this series.

[rocketsfan100]

This series will come down to

1: How aggressively Harden will approach the rest of the series.

2:Maxey and Harris finally get their collective acts together and Help the big two out

3:Melton, Niang and probaly most importantly BBall Paul play productive ball to offset their bench of Brogdan and both the Williams. Paul needs to be really good because he needs to help so Joel can rest a bit more

[JudahMax]

Crazy how much sports can control a man's emotions

I hate this **** team!

Yes if you don’t have a life going on in the real world you can absolutely find yourself in a dark place pounding in a keyboard about some **** you don’t control and don’t even matter in the grand scheme of a fans life….

[JudahMax]

Honest to goodness, Im so pissed rn - shouldn't been this close.

SMH how are you pissed over a WIN? It doesn’t matter how you fkn win in the playoffs aslong as you win! It’s better to go watch the tape and get better from it after a win than doing the same **** after a loss! You people need to get over yourselves

[JudahMax]

Well a win is a win...

Always

[JudahMax]

its taken two Harden 4o point games to eek out wins this series....whereas their wins have been slaughters.

nuff said

News flash DUMB **** when you win you just win there is no W-eek out win!

The sixers tried to give this game away it didn’t have to be that close if we execute and get something from the OTHERS during that run instead of melton blowing layups and ****! Won’t happen game 5 though the OTHERS know we need them going back on the road we’re gonna need a game 1 type performance where everyone contributes

[76ciology]

Some postgame notes:
- Celts shutting down Maxey by not allowing him to go right
- Sixers possession that lead to the game winning shot for Harden, was supposed to be a DHO. JB was denying the catch for Harden and it shifted to the same action we had against the Heat at the top of the key where Harden missed the shot.

[Kova]

So, after sleeping on this game, here are my thoughts with a cooler head.

Negatives:
- this is the difference between us and Boston. Last game they were in a situation where they were leading up to 10-12 points the whole game, but whenever we made it close, they would pull away and closed the game
- we had leads of up to 16, and completely shrunk in the 4th to basically give the game away.
- nobody else besides Embiid and Harden isn't contributing, and I'm not sure how long this can continue (probably not for too long)

Positives:
- truth be told, James Harden won us 2 games in this series (last night with the help of Embiid)
- we did eventually win, even if it was stressful, but the W is a W and we showed that we can come back and win. Especially considering the fact that the officiating was brutal for us. In the OT there were 3 consecutive calls that were ridiculous (flop by Smart, and one on Embiid, offensive push on Tatum). All those resulted directly in 8 points for Celtics. And we still managed to pull out a win after all that.

What next:
- I don't know if we can beat them. They are still heavy favorites. But maybe, just maybe we have a bit of a momentum with this W going into G5. We need to play absolutely a perfect game to give ourselves a chance. And we need other contributors.
- I almost think that for this series we need to establish Harden as our 1st option, and Joel as 2nd option. It works better against Celtics.

[JudahMax]

**** the haters, **** adam silver, **** the colangelos, **** al horford, **** everyone. that's a big win. let's go win game 5 and bring home a ship for Joel and Philly

Agreed F THE HATERS!!!!!!!! IDC IF YOUR A SO CALL SIXERS FAN OR NOT IF YOU TALK AND BASH THE GUYS LIKE A OUTSIDER HATER THEN F YOU ASWELL!!!! Sick of the media bashing harden, boston fans bashing harden and company then gotta hear so call sixers fans bashing harden and etc when it’s suppose to be our safe haven from horse **** like that

[76ciology]

Going to G5
- need to get maxey or tobi (or maybe Milton) going on offense, which is close to impossible
- need to be decent on those non-embiid minutes with Celts being able to deny that 2 man game with Biid.
- need to be good on those non-embiid minutes for Biid to rest
- we can’t play at a lower gear or else we’ll trail behind this celts squad, so we need to play sharp and maybe even sharper like in the first half. And if we do, we better get bigger margin for Biid to rest in crunch time
- no let up like g2 where we made a big win and everyone just goes missing the next game

[Kova]

They talked about Jaylen Brown disappearing for stretches tonight on Inside the NBA. If the Celtics lose this series, Brown has to be gone. All three of the former players think he's conceded and Kenny went so far as to say Tatum is the Jordan to Brown's Pippen. That would make me nuts if I'm the guy who is scoring efficiently while Tatum is shooting like trash.

I honestly think it's not because of Brown but because of the coaching and the game plan. Dude is on fire, and at some point they decide to shut him down and put the ball in Tatum's hands. For the rest of the game, Brown is literally standing in the corner on their possessions and guarding Harden on ours.
I would gladly take Brown in any trade if Celtics want to part ways with him.

[Jay555]

They talked about Jaylen Brown disappearing for stretches tonight on Inside the NBA. If the Celtics lose this series, Brown has to be gone. All three of the former players think he's conceded and Kenny went so far as to say Tatum is the Jordan to Brown's Pippen. That would make me nuts if I'm the guy who is scoring efficiently while Tatum is shooting like trash.

I honestly think it's not because of Brown but because of the coaching and the game plan. Dude is on fire, and at some point they decide to shut him down and put the ball in Tatum's hands. For the rest of the game, Brown is literally standing in the corner on their possessions and guarding Harden on ours.
I would gladly take Brown in any trade if Celtics want to part ways with him.

Any team would be glad to get Jalen.

[76ciology]

So, after sleeping on this game, here are my thoughts with a cooler head.

Negatives:
- this is the difference between us and Boston. Last game they were in a situation where they were leading up to 10-12 points the whole game, but whenever we made it close, they would pull away and closed the game
- we had leads of up to 16, and completely shrunk in the 4th to basically give the game away.
- nobody else besides Embiid and Harden isn't contributing, and I'm not sure how long this can continue (probably not for too long)

Positives:
- truth be told, James Harden won us 2 games in this series (last night with the help of Embiid)
- we did eventually win, even if it was stressful, but the W is a W and we showed that we can come back and win. Especially considering the fact that the officiating was brutal for us. In the OT there were 3 consecutive calls that were ridiculous (flop by Smart, and one on Embiid, offensive push on Tatum). All those resulted directly in 8 points for Celtics. And we still managed to pull out a win after all that.

What next:
- I don't know if we can beat them. They are still heavy favorites. But maybe, just maybe we have a bit of a momentum with this W going into G5. We need to play absolutely a perfect game to give ourselves a chance. And we need other contributors.
- I almost think that for this series we need to establish Harden as our 1st option, and Joel as 2nd option. It works better against Celtics.

Positives:
- They’re already hitting us with their best shot. There’s literally no one who’s struggling on their team now.
- We’re getting used to defending them, eventually this dribble drive offense becomes predictable. Our offense is more predictable but its harder to stop
- In the first half, we showed we can be better than them if we just played sharp with energy and aggressiveness

Negatives:
- Biid and Harden might be tired for next game

[phillynative]

Harden was incredible but it’s terrifying how dependent we are on him offensively.

I’d really like to see us cut harder throughout the course of the game. We often do lazy cuts to clear out some spacing but it’s never threatening to the defense.

Morey did a poor job at the trade deadline. We needed another shot creator or playmaker especially against this Boston team. Tobi and Maxey are not shotcreators they are more of the 3 level scorer ilk.

Not the worlds biggest Morey fan but why would you expect anyone to turn bad players and some 2nd rounders into a high level creator who can play enough defense etc to stay on the court in the PO?

Who expected that? I know we wasn't going to get a high level role player with the pieces we have. The celtics and lakers only seem capable of doing that.

[phillynative]

They talked about Jaylen Brown disappearing for stretches tonight on Inside the NBA. If the Celtics lose this series, Brown has to be gone. All three of the former players think he's conceded and Kenny went so far as to say Tatum is the Jordan to Brown's Pippen. That would make me nuts if I'm the guy who is scoring efficiently while Tatum is shooting like trash.

I think in the back of his head he's just as good as Tatum atleast against us Just like that last play by Tatum kicking it out to Smart as time expires. I bet Brown being the more explosive athlete would have got in the paint quicker to kick it out faster to a open player, ofcourse you would be taking a chance on Browns lesser ball handling and court vision.

[76ciology]

Tatum is better than brown, it’s just that both does not possess HOF level talent. You can say A is better than B or B is better than A, because the talent gap is small and both changes every game.

Problem with this team is we have two HOF level talent but it’s only this game when both of them clicks at the same time.

If Biid and Harden can just be consistent. We’d win this series with the headline being that we have the best players to lead this team.

But what is the impression out there? Biid is playing hurt and Harden is bipolar.