Feed Your Head wrote:In the second half, the Sixers went hard with crowding/trapping Tatum. On top of that, they very aggressively went into ball denial mode with Jaylen, both worked pretty well.
It was great execution by the Sixers, Celtics will need to figure out a way to counter it.
I don't really agree with either of these. I don't think I remember the sixer denying Jaylen the ball all that much, they didn't really have to. the c's made no effort to get him the ball. As for Tatum doubles there were a few late game, late in the shot clock, but for the most part i thought a lot of the c's woes were self-inflicted.
To some degree the c's were victims of their own early success. They played awesome team basketball in the first, and Tatum got hot in the second. Then in the third they stopped doing ALL the things that made them successful in the first place. They got overly reliant on Tatum matchup hunting, they stopped making the right pass, and they slowed WAAAAY down. It was the classic Celtics offensive collapse we've seen in fourth quarters all year, except they started it in the third quarter instead of waiting for the last 6 minutes.
Too often this team looks at their offensive success, and takes all the wrong lessons. Instead of playing the ball movement beautiful game basketball that builds them a lead they slow down, iso, and rely on tough shot making to bail them out. But they aren't good enough at it for it to work.
There should be no "automatic" here or "he's earned it" junk. Smart is not the same on defense this season, and he's just not good on offensive possessions in a game's final seconds. 
