Northern Expedition: Sixers @ Raptors Game 5

[Mik317]

the way I am getting through my white hot rage is the fact that Toronto was supposed to destroy prior to the series. Those two wins back to back blinded us from reality lol.

[ankle420breaker]

I realize he's under the weather, but Embiid looked like someone shot him up with smack and then kidnapped his dog. I've never seen him give off such defeated and disinterested expressions. Some of his turnovers were so jaw-dropping they warranted a breathalyzer.

The most disappointing part is I didn't think Joel was capable of playing this poorly. I've come to expect it from Simmons in this series especially considering he's going up against an infinitely superior player in Kawhi, but Embiid being this unrecognizable the last two games has been pretty disheartening.

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[mithrandir17]

So many panic attacks

Check out other teams and then acknowledge that Simmons is 22 and Embiid is 25

Imagine being Lakers, OKC, Utah, Pacers, etc

Or Celtics lmao

You guys need to get a grip

Embiid being just 25 should not be an excuse. He'll be retired due to injury before he turns 30. So we only have a few more years of him.

[hookshot199]

So many panic attacks

Check out other teams and then acknowledge that Simmons is 22 and Embiid is 25

Imagine being Lakers, OKC, Utah, Pacers, etc

Or Celtics lmao

You guys need to get a grip

Losing is losing and should never be accepted. We are in year 7 of “the process” and haven’t made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. That’s flat out failure. If you choose to look at the bright side, good for you, but acting like you can’t imagine why people are upset is ridiculous. Especially when the team obviously quit and looked horrible.

You do have to give some credit for the delay to Jerry Colangelo and his lapdog Adam Silver. And we're still not one year removed from the stench of Bryan and his daddy. We weren't going to win this series with Dario, RoCo and Fultz - and, despite his good rookie play and upside, Landry Shamet. We lost a year, perhaps two in "The Process".

We have a chance, a very small one, to win the series. I don't think we're deep enough to beat Milwaukee.

The main thing is to learn from this season because, in my opinion, we get one more shot at fixing the roster and fixing the coaching. We don't know enough of the inside story to make an informed judgment about whether Josh Harris should replace Brand. We've seen again that Brown isn't up to the task to win in the playoffs. I think he did a good job (with Brand) in last year's draft. We don't know about Zhair - yet. But I would think he's got tremendous upside. I don't think Brown did a good job with Ben's development and building a bench.

The fact that so many posters are talking about Ben being a bust is disconcerting. We don't need to baby him any more or accept his concept of basketball - that not shooting and attacking the basket are okay.

I don't know if you watched the Bucks-Celtics series. But in game 3, I couldn't believe how stupidly the Bucks played in the last five minutes, blowing a big lead by chucking up 3s early in the 24-second clock rather than milking the clock. That's "Sixers ball" in my opinion. Budenholzer adjusted in game 4 and, by milking the clock, prevented the Celtics from making a run.

[gdog2004]

So many panic attacks

Check out other teams and then acknowledge that Simmons is 22 and Embiid is 25

Imagine being Lakers, OKC, Utah, Pacers, etc

Or Celtics lmao

You guys need to get a grip

Losing is losing and should never be accepted. We are in year 7 of “the process” and haven’t made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. That’s flat out failure. If you choose to look at the bright side, good for you, but acting like you can’t imagine why people are upset is ridiculous. Especially when the team obviously quit and looked horrible.

You do have to give some credit for the delay to Jerry Colangelo and his lapdog Adam Silver. And we're still not one year removed from the stench of Bryan and his daddy. We weren't going to win this series with Dario, RoCo and Fultz - and, despite his good rookie play and upside, Landry Shamet. We lost a year, perhaps two in "The Process".

We have a chance, a very small one, to win the series. I don't think we're deep enough to beat Milwaukee.

The main thing is to learn from this season because, in my opinion, we get one more shot at fixing the roster and fixing the coaching. We don't know enough of the inside story to make an informed judgment about whether Josh Harris should replace Brand. We've seen again that Brown isn't up to the task to win in the playoffs. I think he did a good job (with Brand) in last year's draft. We don't know about Zhair - yet. But I would think he's got tremendous upside. I don't think Brown did a good job with Ben's development and building a bench.

The fact that so many posters are talking about Ben being a bust is disconcerting. We don't need to baby him any more or accept his concept of basketball - that not shooting and attacking the basket are okay.

I don't know if you watched the Bucks-Celtics series. But in game 3, I couldn't believe how stupidly the Bucks played in the last five minutes, blowing a big lead by chucking up 3s early in the 24-second clock rather than milking the clock. That's "Sixers ball" in my opinion. Budenholzer adjusted in game 4 and, by milking the clock, prevented the Celtics from making a run.

The goal of the Process was to be a perennial title contender and I just don't see that.
The issue is the team is built around two guys who shrink in the playoffs for different reasons. Embiid has been truly great ONE game this series, ONE. He is injury prone and for whatever reason cannot stay healthy consistently.
Simmons is a good player who is great against sub par competition but shrinks when the competition gets really tough.
He did it last year against the Celtics, and he is doing it this year against the Raptors. Maybe next year the Bucks will be the one to embarrass him.

[AirP.]

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[Hipster Doofus]

Read on Twitter

He's the epitome of a tough as nails, no taking BS from anyone, Philadelphia player.

Love him.

[Hipster Doofus]

I have a good feeling about tomorrow's game.

We blew them out last Thursday, 7 days ago. Tomorrow is Thursday, a week later.

Another win.

7 days = this is going all the way to 7 games.

Numerology don't lie

[Tomhomes33]

Ok Skip trolling Embiid..i almost died laughing..check youtube starting around 7min:20sec..

Skip” What is wrong with him? Does he have West Nile virus? does he have a bird flue?...”

[AirP.]

If this is true, I'd suspect Butler is wondering if this is the group of guys he wants to continue to play with. Butler equates effort to winning basketball and last night the effort didn't seem to be there in a playoff game. Yes, Embiid is sick, but there were others(one in particular) that didn't show up. Although not nearly as bad, does he see another Wiggins type situation, allocating a max to someone who could do more and isn't? Philly is in a very tough situation if they lose this series(because of how they played in multiple 2nd round games).

The rest of their teammates and coaches had already begun to take that long, gloomy stroll to the locker room when Joel Embiid approached Jimmy Butler, who was still sitting on the bench — in deep thought, staring blankly into nothing in particular — and offered his hand to lift him. Butler shot up and immediately patted Embiid on his right shoulder, offering a reassuring pick-me-up to the big fella. Dispirited, the player whom Coach Brett Brown likes to call “the crown jewel” of the Philadelphia 76ers couldn’t have possessed a more diminished luster.

https://theathletic.com/968108/2019/05/08/joel-embiid-ben-simmons-and-the-76ers-are-staring-down-another-second-round-of-horrors/

[BullyKing]

Ok Skip trolling Embiid..i almost died laughing..check youtube starting around 7min:20sec..

Skip” What is wrong with him? Does he have West Nile virus? does he have a bird flue?...”

The fact that you listen to Skip Bayless and that had you "almost died laughing" says way more about you than Embiid.

[BullyKing]

If this is true, I'd suspect Butler is wondering if this is the group of guys he wants to continue to play with. Butler equates effort to winning basketball and last night the effort didn't seem to be there in a playoff game. Yes, Embiid is sick, but there were others(one in particular) that didn't show up. Although not nearly as bad, does he see another Wiggins type situation, allocating a max to someone who could do more and isn't? Philly is in a very tough situation if they lose this series(because of how they played in multiple 2nd round games).

The rest of their teammates and coaches had already begun to take that long, gloomy stroll to the locker room when Joel Embiid approached Jimmy Butler, who was still sitting on the bench — in deep thought, staring blankly into nothing in particular — and offered his hand to lift him. Butler shot up and immediately patted Embiid on his right shoulder, offering a reassuring pick-me-up to the big fella. Dispirited, the player whom Coach Brett Brown likes to call “the crown jewel” of the Philadelphia 76ers couldn’t have possessed a more diminished luster.

https://theathletic.com/968108/2019/05/08/joel-embiid-ben-simmons-and-the-76ers-are-staring-down-another-second-round-of-horrors/

Seems to me like you're simply reading your own agenda into an innocuous tale about one teammate supporting another.

[AirP.]

The rest of their teammates and coaches had already begun to take that long, gloomy stroll to the locker room when Joel Embiid approached Jimmy Butler, who was still sitting on the bench — in deep thought, staring blankly into nothing in particular — and offered his hand to lift him. Butler shot up and immediately patted Embiid on his right shoulder, offering a reassuring pick-me-up to the big fella. Dispirited, the player whom Coach Brett Brown likes to call “the crown jewel” of the Philadelphia 76ers couldn’t have possessed a more diminished luster.

https://theathletic.com/968108/2019/05/08/joel-embiid-ben-simmons-and-the-76ers-are-staring-down-another-second-round-of-horrors/

Seems to me like you're simply reading your own agenda into an innocuous tale about one teammate supporting another.

So you tell me why Butler is sitting on the bench alone in deep thought after a poor effort by his teammates during a 2nd round playoff game.

I've followed Butler his whole career, I've seen this type of behavior from him. For a recent instance, after the poor effort by Towns(it's been said Butler thinks Towns cares about his numbers more then wins) in the playoffs he didn't take the team plane back to Minnesota. Usually, there are exit interviews that have to be conducted in person after a season is over, which is interesting because Embiid was looking at the stats during the end of the game.

Read on Twitter

Luckily for the 76ers, it seems that Embiid and Butler have a real bond, that may help retain Butler.

[hookshot199]

Losing is losing and should never be accepted. We are in year 7 of “the process” and haven’t made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs. That’s flat out failure. If you choose to look at the bright side, good for you, but acting like you can’t imagine why people are upset is ridiculous. Especially when the team obviously quit and looked horrible.

You do have to give some credit for the delay to Jerry Colangelo and his lapdog Adam Silver. And we're still not one year removed from the stench of Bryan and his daddy. We weren't going to win this series with Dario, RoCo and Fultz - and, despite his good rookie play and upside, Landry Shamet. We lost a year, perhaps two in "The Process".

We have a chance, a very small one, to win the series. I don't think we're deep enough to beat Milwaukee.

The main thing is to learn from this season because, in my opinion, we get one more shot at fixing the roster and fixing the coaching. We don't know enough of the inside story to make an informed judgment about whether Josh Harris should replace Brand. We've seen again that Brown isn't up to the task to win in the playoffs. I think he did a good job (with Brand) in last year's draft. We don't know about Zhair - yet. But I would think he's got tremendous upside. I don't think Brown did a good job with Ben's development and building a bench.

The fact that so many posters are talking about Ben being a bust is disconcerting. We don't need to baby him any more or accept his concept of basketball - that not shooting and attacking the basket are okay.

I don't know if you watched the Bucks-Celtics series. But in game 3, I couldn't believe how stupidly the Bucks played in the last five minutes, blowing a big lead by chucking up 3s early in the 24-second clock rather than milking the clock. That's "Sixers ball" in my opinion. Budenholzer adjusted in game 4 and, by milking the clock, prevented the Celtics from making a run.

The goal of the Process was to be a perennial title contender and I just don't see that.
The issue is the team is built around two guys who shrink in the playoffs for different reasons. Embiid has been truly great ONE game this series, ONE. He is injury prone and for whatever reason cannot stay healthy consistently.
Simmons is a good player who is great against sub par competition but shrinks when the competition gets really tough.
He did it last year against the Celtics, and he is doing it this year against the Raptors. Maybe next year the Bucks will be the one to embarrass him.

I'm not disputing your main point. But surely will concede that striking out on the Fultz pick (worse than that, we included the Sacramento pick) changed everything. So the only way you're going to see a perennial title contender is if soon-to-be-27-year-old Tobias Harris proves to be the third star. I'm not seeing it, but he does fit on paper. And, let's be fair, Harris put up better numbers for Doc Rovers than he has for the Sixers. It's shocking how his 3-point shooting has fallen. So I'm not ready to give up on him yet. I think a coaching change is in order.

But back to Fultz. He was supposed to be a scorer (the next James Hardin) and secondary ball-handler. So far, he's proven to be neither and, fortunately, he's no longer our problem.

We will know a week from now how badly we lost the Fultz trade. As things stand going into the lottery, the Celtics chances of picking 14th are 96.2%. Their chances of winning the 2, 3 or 4 pick are 3.8%. If they draft 14th, that's still a wasted pick but not devastating. Moreover, we did not see Tatum make the sort of progress that the Celtics were hoping for. As things stand today, he's looking like a very similar player to Harris despite playing for a far superior coach.

But my main point: Jerry C, Mr. USA Basketball, got the ear of Adam Silver and Josh Harris, then did the inexcusable by bringing in his incompetent son and derailing The Process. I could have lived with Bryan's pick of Fultz (people make mistakes) but to throw in one of Hinkie's assets, which itself has lost value, because D'Aaron Fox or Donovan Mitchell may prove to be the best picks in the 2017 draft.

As for Ben, let's see what happens if/when we get a better coach. I believe, given his inexplicable reluctance to shoot, that whoever the coach is next year, Brown or someone who takes a more hands-on approach, that Ben needs to take X number of shots per game and, if necessary, have plays drawn up for him.

And if can't shoot - hell, even Magic learned to make that ugly set shot - then we need to consider alternatives.

So while The Process was meant to build a foundation for sustainable contenders, we lost two picks, but maybe only one impact player. Let's cross our fingers next Tuesday.

BTW: I like having the 33 and 34 picks (the former by way of the Fultz trade to Orlando) than the 14 pick. We never do it, but if we can batch them and move up to 25, we might get the next Clint Capella. Or the next Marc Gasol, Lou Williams, Kyle Korver or Pat Connaughton, all of whom were drafted in the 40s. Also Patrick Beverly.

[BullyKing]

https://theathletic.com/968108/2019/05/08/joel-embiid-ben-simmons-and-the-76ers-are-staring-down-another-second-round-of-horrors/

Seems to me like you're simply reading your own agenda into an innocuous tale about one teammate supporting another.

So you tell me why Butler is sitting on the bench alone in deep thought after a poor effort by his teammates during a 2nd round playoff game.

I've followed Butler his whole career, I've seen this type of behavior from him. For a recent instance, after the poor effort by Towns(it's been said Butler thinks Towns cares about his numbers more then wins) in the playoffs he didn't take the team plane back to Minnesota. Usually, there are exit interviews that have to be conducted in person after a season is over.

Luckily for the 76ers, it seems that Embiid and Butler have a real bond, that may help retain Butler.

You just continue to make things up. Butler clashed with Towns and Wiggins because they were dogs on defense, not because they had poor night. And then Butler joined Embiid at the press conference to have his back. You gave examples that show that Butler hightails it when he's unhappy. And here he did the exact opposite.

[eagereyez]

[AirP.]

Seems to me like you're simply reading your own agenda into an innocuous tale about one teammate supporting another.

So you tell me why Butler is sitting on the bench alone in deep thought after a poor effort by his teammates during a 2nd round playoff game.

I've followed Butler his whole career, I've seen this type of behavior from him. For a recent instance, after the poor effort by Towns(it's been said Butler thinks Towns cares about his numbers more then wins) in the playoffs he didn't take the team plane back to Minnesota. Usually, there are exit interviews that have to be conducted in person after a season is over.

Luckily for the 76ers, it seems that Embiid and Butler have a real bond, that may help retain Butler.

You just continue to make things up. Butler clashed with Towns and Wiggins because they were dogs on defense, not because they had poor night. And then Butler joined Embiid at the press conference to have his back. You gave examples that show that Butler hightails it when he's unhappy. And here he did the exact opposite.

Make things up, I'm speculating based off watching Butler his whole career. There are reasons for players/people doing certain things. Sitting on the bench after a game is over with basically everyone associated with the team left isn't normal.

Yes, after Embiid went to him to offer support, Butler did and does the same for Embiid, those 2 seem to have a great bond, that doesn't mean Butler isn't thinking long term with this team after another bad performance in the playoffs. If this team gave great effort and lost I don't think he'd have a problem at all with the loss, but lack of effort really bothers him not to mention this team just doesn't fit together well, talented yes, good synergy no.

[gdog2004]

You do have to give some credit for the delay to Jerry Colangelo and his lapdog Adam Silver. And we're still not one year removed from the stench of Bryan and his daddy. We weren't going to win this series with Dario, RoCo and Fultz - and, despite his good rookie play and upside, Landry Shamet. We lost a year, perhaps two in "The Process".

We have a chance, a very small one, to win the series. I don't think we're deep enough to beat Milwaukee.

The main thing is to learn from this season because, in my opinion, we get one more shot at fixing the roster and fixing the coaching. We don't know enough of the inside story to make an informed judgment about whether Josh Harris should replace Brand. We've seen again that Brown isn't up to the task to win in the playoffs. I think he did a good job (with Brand) in last year's draft. We don't know about Zhair - yet. But I would think he's got tremendous upside. I don't think Brown did a good job with Ben's development and building a bench.

The fact that so many posters are talking about Ben being a bust is disconcerting. We don't need to baby him any more or accept his concept of basketball - that not shooting and attacking the basket are okay.

I don't know if you watched the Bucks-Celtics series. But in game 3, I couldn't believe how stupidly the Bucks played in the last five minutes, blowing a big lead by chucking up 3s early in the 24-second clock rather than milking the clock. That's "Sixers ball" in my opinion. Budenholzer adjusted in game 4 and, by milking the clock, prevented the Celtics from making a run.

The goal of the Process was to be a perennial title contender and I just don't see that.
The issue is the team is built around two guys who shrink in the playoffs for different reasons. Embiid has been truly great ONE game this series, ONE. He is injury prone and for whatever reason cannot stay healthy consistently.
Simmons is a good player who is great against sub par competition but shrinks when the competition gets really tough.
He did it last year against the Celtics, and he is doing it this year against the Raptors. Maybe next year the Bucks will be the one to embarrass him.

I'm not disputing your main point. But surely will concede that striking out on the Fultz pick (worse than that, we included the Sacramento pick) changed everything. So the only way you're going to see a perennial title contender is if soon-to-be-27-year-old Tobias Harris proves to be the third star. I'm not seeing it, but he does fit on paper. And, let's be fair, Harris put up better numbers for Doc Rovers than he has for the Sixers. It's shocking how his 3-point shooting has fallen. So I'm not ready to give up on him yet. I think a coaching change is in order.

But back to Fultz. He was supposed to be a scorer (the next James Hardin) and secondary ball-handler. So far, he's proven to be neither and, fortunately, he's no longer our problem.

We will know a week from now how badly we lost the Fultz trade. As things stand going into the lottery, the Celtics chances of picking 14th are 96.2%. Their chances of winning the 2, 3 or 4 pick are 3.8%. If they draft 14th, that's still a wasted pick but not devastating. Moreover, we did not see Tatum make the sort of progress that the Celtics were hoping for. As things stand today, he's looking like a very similar player to Harris despite playing for a far superior coach.

But my main point: Jerry C, Mr. USA Basketball, got the ear of Adam Silver and Josh Harris, then did the inexcusable by bringing in his incompetent son and derailing The Process. I could have lived with Bryan's pick of Fultz (people make mistakes) but to throw in one of Hinkie's assets, which itself has lost value, because D'Aaron Fox or Donovan Mitchell may prove to be the best picks in the 2017 draft.

As for Ben, let's see what happens if/when we get a better coach. I believe, given his inexplicable reluctance to shoot, that whoever the coach is next year, Brown or someone who takes a more hands-on approach, that Ben needs to take X number of shots per game and, if necessary, have plays drawn up for him.

And if can't shoot - hell, even Magic learned to make that ugly set shot - then we need to consider alternatives.

So while The Process was meant to build a foundation for sustainable contenders, we lost two picks, but maybe only one impact player. Let's cross our fingers next Tuesday.

BTW: I like having the 33 and 34 picks (the former by way of the Fultz trade to Orlando) than the 14 pick. We never do it, but if we can batch them and move up to 25, we might get the next Clint Capella. Or the next Marc Gasol, Lou Williams, Kyle Korver or Pat Connaughton, all of whom were drafted in the 40s. Also Patrick Beverly.

Couple things.

So many things wrong...the Fultz pick and trade was the biggest disaster of all though.
The pick of Okafor, Noel, blowing every other pick. Not getting ONE rotational player out of all the picks Hinkie accumulated.
Trading away all assets that were left for a "good" rental player.
(Sorry, Harris isn't a max player, no where near it)
Simmons and Embiid both shrink in the playoffs.
The team was bad for years and years and hit rock bottom only to get right where they left off, not good enough to get past the second round and not even good enough to not get embarrassed in the second round.
If they get blown out in 6 I could see them moving on from Brown.
What can you do....this is the team they have. Go Eagles !

[LordCovington33]

Ben for Devin Booker, Mikal and their first.

What planet are you living on mate?

The Suns are a perennial bottom 5 team, and yet fans feel those with the highest usage (Booker etc) have significant trade value. Booker is a one-side-of-the-ball player with a max contract and has not seen playoffs action since becoming the face. The only valuable asset is the first, and that depends on where it falls.

[AirP.]

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