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Harden needs to go full Rambo.
No time for Tropic Thunder.

Celts was able to win 2 straight.
It’s time for us to get our 2 straight.

There have been 26 instances since the NBA went to 2-2-1-1-1 where a series was 2-2 with the W/L pattern of BOS/PHI

Higher seed is 20-6

When the home team wins GM5, they are 20-2

If Celts lose GM5, that team is 0-4 in the series

If BOS wins GM5 & PHI GM6, higher seed is 8-2

Take us home James.

This team stresses me out lol

Can Maxey/Tobi give us something this game? Can they?

So ready, let's go!

This right here is when the stars come out....and/or when mental midgets rear their ugly heads....

Defend better on the closeouts, anticipate the kick out when they drive. If we can defend that better, we can slow them down a bit.

been waiting for the classic Jo is in his feelings game...almost gave us that in the the 4th.

as long as Harden and Biid play hard I honestly don't care about the outcome. .... just can't be passive and shook from those two..

if we lose let it be due to the others not showing up...they are replaceable lol.

Iam praying Maxey gets a solid game in and Tobias too. Harden has to stay aggressive but the focus is going to be on limiting him in Boston. I expect even worse reffing this game. But we have to win this one at all costs. We need Embiid to endure the game and be most effective down the stretch. I hope he gets more rest breaks and Reed gets a better chance to connect with more minutes than he has.

Absolutely terrified of game 5. Harden has split personalities so who knows which version we get & Joel returned to some ugly habits at the end of this one.

The most frustrating part is we do dumb & lazy sh*t constantly that gets in the way of winning. Should have won game 3, almost gave away game 4, but maybe we can just get a good clean win in game 5.

In game 4, Sixers kept positioning Maxey on the opposite wing of Harden and Boston wasn't willing to do more than stunt off of Maxey to help Harden's defender at the nail (which is where they were doubling him in games 2 and 3 to prevent him from getting paint touches). If they start to help off of Maxey, that's when Harden shifts back from scoring mode to distribution mode and Maxey and Harris need to be ready to stroke the open 3 off the James double team, they're both great open 3 pt shooters. If the help defense doesn't come to free up Maxey and Harris, well then PHI needs god mode James Harden again to have the mid range, floater, and occasional blow by to generate the offense.

Gonna need MVP Joel Embiid to play like an MVP one of these games.

Doc needs to rest him more in the first half. Joel was barely moving by end of the game.

mksp wrote:Gonna need MVP Joel Embiid to play like an MVP one of these games.

Doc needs to rest him more in the first half. Joel was barely moving by end of the game.

This might be the key of the game. Bball Paul needs to play 15-20 minutes so Embiid can play like an MVP. 30 minutes of EMVPiid is better than 20 good minutes and 20 terrible, exhausted minutes.

Embiid and Harden have to be the best players in the game for us to win from here on out. Or Harden has to at least be a close 3rd.

Celtics too deep otherwise. Just look at the Nuggets game: Jokic is the best player but Durant and Booker were 2 and 3. It's no longer the early 2000s; need two guys to blow up in a game to bring it home at this point.

What prevents us from playing 5 out like the Celtics do? Harden, Maxey, Tobias, Tucker, Embiid... every one of them can hit an open 3. Maxey and Harden can both get to the rim and kick out to whoever is open.

Other than...
PJ is too slow on the release and often doesn't get his 'open' shots off in time, forcing a reset.
Celtics in general are longer and quicker on defense, making it harder to get that open 3pt shot.
Overall we don't seem to shoot quite as well as the Celtics from 3.

Okay, I guess those are all good reasons.

I really thought Embiid only looked bad for like 8 minutes in the 4th. Towards the end of regulation and in OT, he picked it back up by playing smarter not harder.

I do agree Reed should be given more minutes though. Doc needs to do better at spacing out when Embiid and Harden sit so that we can have some minutes of Harden playing that 5 out style for the whole duration of when Embiid sits so the offense can make up for the defensive drop-off.

Let Melton set the offense when Harden sits though because Maxey has not done well at getting the offense set up this series, he's looked out of his element when he's been asked to do so in this series.

If the Sixers get a lead, can we do away with Niang/Maxey on the court at the same time. When we're up, Melton needs to be in there for Maxey.

again Doc should have went with the Harden time lineup sooner than he normally does as soon as he saw Biid start to gas out. And then when he went to it, he didn't stick with it long either (and even almost went to the PJ at the 5 lineup with is even worse). AND THEN when it was obvious Biid didn't have it....why not go to Harden who did?

These are the small coaching things that add up. Luckily Mazzula not calling a TO added up more but still time for Doc and his 20 staff members to make their money too.

Magicman125 wrote:I really thought Embiid only looked bad for like 8 minutes in the 4th. Towards the end of regulation and in OT, he picked it back up by playing smarter not harder.

I do agree Reed should be given more minutes though. Doc needs to do better at spacing out when Embiid and Harden sit so that we can have some minutes of Harden playing that 5 out style for the whole duration of when Embiid sits so the offense can make up for the defensive drop-off.

Let Melton set the offense when Harden sits though because Maxey has not done well at getting the offense set up this series, he's looked out of his element when he's been asked to do so in this series.

I feel like some of y'all are pretending like Melton can dribble. As poorly as Maxey has played, he's leaps and bounds above Melton when it comes to doing basic guard stuff.

mksp wrote:

Magicman125 wrote:I really thought Embiid only looked bad for like 8 minutes in the 4th. Towards the end of regulation and in OT, he picked it back up by playing smarter not harder.

I do agree Reed should be given more minutes though. Doc needs to do better at spacing out when Embiid and Harden sit so that we can have some minutes of Harden playing that 5 out style for the whole duration of when Embiid sits so the offense can make up for the defensive drop-off.

Let Melton set the offense when Harden sits though because Maxey has not done well at getting the offense set up this series, he's looked out of his element when he's been asked to do so in this series.

I feel like some of y'all are pretending like Melton can dribble. As poorly as Maxey has played, he's leaps and bounds above Melton when it comes to doing basic guard stuff.

On the offensive end. The reason Boston didn't call a timeout in overtime is because they were seeking Maxey out and didn't want Rivers to put his best 5 defenders out there. When you get a lead, play defense.

Silver lining - the Celtics have outscored us by 41 points through 4 games, yet the series is tied.

Therefore reversion to the mean may help us. It's extremely difficult to beat a team by 10 ppg over an entire series unless you're great and they're one of the worst in the league, which is obviously not the case here.