Game Thread: Sixers (34-16) @ Celtics (25-25) – 7:30PM, Tues. 04-06-21

[aussie_pride]

Can't stand the calls he gets but if you don't think Embiids a great center you have no credibility

Explain to me why he is a good centre? Look at the players who he is up against? None of them can defend. To be fair to the guy that is not his fault; Embiid can only play who he is up against. All I'm saying is that is centres learn to defend the way that Horford, Gasol and Gobert can then Embiid would not be half the player people make him out to be. God help Embiid if he came up against a technically proficient defender like Robert Parish!

He's huge, agile, has good touch, excellent patience, intelligent passer, can run the offense through him. Averages 30 points per game, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.5 blocks while shooting 50% from the field and 40% from 3. Parish is a HOFer so I don't think saying HOFers could compete with him makes him a lesser player.

Also you referenced Shaqs defense, Shaq won 4 titles and averaged close to 40 in the Finals against the Pacers when he dominated Rik Smits. If thats not great, please show me a Center who is.

Loooool! Intelligent passer!! You have got to be kidding me! Embiid is not a good passer; he is competent but there is no way that you could have him facilitate in the same way Jokic does. Good passing centres in my book would be the likes of Bill Walton, Arvydas Sabonis, the Gasols, Draymond Green (if you classify him as a centre). All of those guys are far superior passers to Embiid.

I'm not going to argue with the number he is putting up because that is not the point I'm making. What I am saying is that he is the beneficiary of a league where the majority of centres cannot defend. If you put Embiid in an era such as the 60s, 70s, 80s and even the 90s where he would be up against more skilled centres, the guy wouldn't be putting up half those numbers.

Shaq was dominant, predominantly because of his size. He even admits that he did not care about being skilled; he was just dominant. He was big, powerful guy who ran of the top of a lot of people. He was not a great defensive player; like I said his size made it hard for other centres to score inside but in terms of moving his feet and reading opponents moves, the guy was not good. Furthermore, that style of play worked really well in the era that he was in. If you put him up against Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell or a lot of the guys from that era when the rules made the game harder for big men then he would be in serious trouble.

[playa-hater]

People can blame Brad all they want. But bottomline, our "stars" aren't good enough.

This. Kemba’s knee isn’t the same, Tatum still feeling the effects of covid, and Jaylen has tendinitis in his left knee. When your best players aren’t healthy, it is not going to be fun to watch. We need to rest these guys for the rest of the year and focus on the future. Hit that tank button, Danny.

respectfully disagree. Kemba is still too small and never was a passer. Tatum and Brown's Covid/tendenitis have nothing to do with playing low IQ ball.

[grindtime22]

People can blame Brad all they want. But bottomline, our "stars" aren't good enough.

this is getting old. Our "stars" make dumb plays yes, but Stevens never ever ever holds them accountable. Started with game 7 vs Cleveland and he allowed Rozier - Smart - Brown to take dumb hero ball shots. Since then it has gotten worse. Stevens has enabled some of the worst ball movement shot selections I have ever seen wearing Boston Green.

It is ALL on Brad Stevens..

#accountabality

We are really going to take it back to 2018?

Brad was awful that year

[zoyathedestroya]

People can blame Brad all they want. But bottomline, our "stars" aren't good enough.

Might we be able to attribute it to the following:

Played on team USA in Summer 2019
Played deep into the playoffs in the bubble
1/2 of them had COVID this season with some long COVID symptoms


??

Fine. They're not good enough this season. But I still see most people putting the bulk of the blame on Stevens. Look at what he's had to work with all season. If the stars are this inconsistent, you won't be winning much.

[playa-hater]

People can blame Brad all they want. But bottomline, our "stars" aren't good enough.

this is getting old. Our "stars" make dumb plays yes, but Stevens never ever ever holds them accountable. Started with game 7 vs Cleveland and he allowed Rozier - Smart - Brown to take dumb hero ball shots. Since then it has gotten worse. Stevens has enabled some of the worst ball movement shot selections I have ever seen wearing Boston Green.

It is ALL on Brad Stevens..

#accountabality

We are really going to take it back to 2018?

Brad was awful that year

2018 no, but game 7.. re-watch the game if you want.. hero ball all over the place..

[zoyathedestroya]

People can blame Brad all they want. But bottomline, our "stars" aren't good enough.

This. Kemba’s knee isn’t the same, Tatum still feeling the effects of covid, and Jaylen has tendinitis in his left knee. When your best players aren’t healthy, it is not going to be fun to watch. We need to rest these guys for the rest of the year and focus on the future. Hit that tank button, Danny.

Our stars are like 23 years old. Come on now.

So let's fire Brad for their age. Makes sense.

[kuclas]

Explain to me why he is a good centre? Look at the players who he is up against? None of them can defend. To be fair to the guy that is not his fault; Embiid can only play who he is up against. All I'm saying is that is centres learn to defend the way that Horford, Gasol and Gobert can then Embiid would not be half the player people make him out to be. God help Embiid if he came up against a technically proficient defender like Robert Parish!

I can't even tell if this post is serious

I'm 100% serious! Do you even watch Embiid? Like I keep saying, look at him when he comes up a technically proficient defender - he always struggles. Do you not remember in the playoffs when Gasol kept him to 1 point or something? Embiid is just the beneficiary of an NBA era when defence is poorly played.

The key to guarding Embiid is to get him frustrated. He forces bad shots. That means hard double teams. It can work. He’s still not a good passer out of the double team. But sixers have enough outside shooting this year where you cannot leave guys like Seth curry or Danny green open. But Embiid against anyone 1:1 is suicide these days.

[greenroom31]

This. Kemba’s knee isn’t the same, Tatum still feeling the effects of covid, and Jaylen has tendinitis in his left knee. When your best players aren’t healthy, it is not going to be fun to watch. We need to rest these guys for the rest of the year and focus on the future. Hit that tank button, Danny.

Our stars are like 23 years old. Come on now.

So let's fire Brad for their age. Makes sense.

Where did I say anything about Brad in my post?

[BRUNiNHO91]

Guess we'll have to kill the Bucks instead

I'm scared of Brooklyn. Not scared of Philly. They are solid but if we match effort they aren't that much better than us. Game was somewhat even outside that Danny Green flurry in Q2.

Btw Embiid 20 FT's

I'm not comfortable facing against any of those three teams, hell even if we get the 5th seed to face Miami I won't like our chances. There's fewer and fewer games to right the ship, so there's very little confidence we'll figure things out.

The Sixers defense is for real, that's the main reason our offense looked like crap today. They just deflect every pass and they play physical D. And yes Embiid got 20 fts but he gets double-digits there often anyway. His style is just gonna tranlsate better in the playoffs, and he's got great shooters around him already in Curry, Green, Milton, and Thybulle to some extent. If you're not scared of them beating our asses when it gets to the postseason, you're being delusional.

Heard this same exact arguement last year when they beat us 3-1 in the season series in similar fashion.


I mean if we don't sort our **** out we won't even have a chance to get that far. But if we do, I assume we will be at a better place team wise. If this team doesn't have the extra gear effort wise that I believe they do when healthy, then we won't make it past the play in game.

[aussie_pride]

Embiid ain’t overrated. Boston just isn’t tough enough s and. Kemba’s and Brown’s shots today were awful.

We also can’t get to foul line.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Embiid is massively overrated. You put him up against any centre who can defend i.e. Gasol, Horford and he goes quiet. He is just lucky in that he plays in an era where there are not a lot of good defensive big men.

Gasol couldn’t defend Embiid anymore. He’s a shell of himself. Gobert couldn’t defend him. Another center who can still defend him is Baynes who held Embiid to 25% shooting and it’s because Toronto double team Embiid the minute his touched the ball. It worked one game. The second game raptors got killed leaving too many open shooters.

Good point on Baynes. I actually thought we made a mistake letting him go as he really added a lot of toughness on defence.

Gasol is 36 so you need to cut him some slack in that his quickness is probably on the decline a bit. With that being said, Embiid is not a centre with a lot of guile, particularly down low. He does what all big centres do these days and tries to bump players out of the post when he does post up. Either that or he looks for those soft-ass fouls and flops when he gets brushed by a finger nail. That works well to and extent but I think Gasol has got the smarts to cover him still. Against a player with genuine quickness down low, Gasol would struggle though.

[Bird4Three]

We f****ng suck

[Revived]

Can't stand the calls he gets but if you don't think Embiids a great center you have no credibility

Explain to me why he is a good centre? Look at the players who he is up against? None of them can defend. To be fair to the guy that is not his fault; Embiid can only play who he is up against. All I'm saying is that is centres learn to defend the way that Horford, Gasol and Gobert can then Embiid would not be half the player people make him out to be. God help Embiid if he came up against a technically proficient defender like Robert Parish!

Lol here’s his game against Gobert from a month ago

Watch on YouTube

[LoquaciousLarry]

He might not be the best passing center of all time like the ones you listed and yeah he might struggle against Wilt or Russell two of the best big men of all time but cmon guy, how many Centers are capable of doing what Joel is even in this soft era with no defense? He is a legitimate MVP candidate. I'm not a fan of the guy but he's a hell of a basketball player.

Shaq wasn't a skilled shooter and was out of shape but he could dribble, pass, and obviously was a tremendous athlete with that size. You wouldn't want a prime Shaq or current Embiid on your team?

[aussie_pride]

I can't even tell if this post is serious

I'm 100% serious! Do you even watch Embiid? Like I keep saying, look at him when he comes up a technically proficient defender - he always struggles. Do you not remember in the playoffs when Gasol kept him to 1 point or something? Embiid is just the beneficiary of an NBA era when defence is poorly played.

The key to guarding Embiid is to get him frustrated. He forces bad shots. That means hard double teams. It can work. He’s still not a good passer out of the double team. But sixers have enough outside shooting this year where you cannot leave guys like Seth curry or Danny green open. But Embiid against anyone 1:1 is suicide these days.

Exactly!!! Embiid is very confident when his outside shots are falling because he plays from outside to in. Someone posted before that he was a good passer and I started feeling nauseous! What I don't get though is why more teams do not realize the importance of teaching defence to big men. Correspondingly, if you are a big man then you should be doing with with someone like Kevin McHale or Kevin Garnett to develop an inside game. You would be literally unstoppable if you had low post moves.

[GotDaSauce]

Kornet should have at least 10 attempts from 3 in this game

Brad had to get cute and play Tacko instead

Tacko +1
Kornet -12

All respect but your 10 min PER you like to post is useless. Watch the game and you see Kornet was playing well in his minutes out there.

[Celts17Pride]

Brad had to get cute and play Tacko instead

Tacko +1
Kornet -12

All respect but your 10 min PER you like to post is useless. Watch the game and you see Kornet was playing well in his minutes out there.

Sure

[Ill News]

I'm scared of Brooklyn. Not scared of Philly. They are solid but if we match effort they aren't that much better than us. Game was somewhat even outside that Danny Green flurry in Q2.

Btw Embiid 20 FT's

I'm not comfortable facing against any of those three teams, hell even if we get the 5th seed to face Miami I won't like our chances. There's fewer and fewer games to right the ship, so there's very little confidence we'll figure things out.

The Sixers defense is for real, that's the main reason our offense looked like crap today. They just deflect every pass and they play physical D. And yes Embiid got 20 fts but he gets double-digits there often anyway. His style is just gonna tranlsate better in the playoffs, and he's got great shooters around him already in Curry, Green, Milton, and Thybulle to some extent. If you're not scared of them beating our asses when it gets to the postseason, you're being delusional.

Heard this same exact arguement last year when they beat us 3-1 in the season series in similar fashion.


I mean if we don't sort our **** out we won't even have a chance to get that far. But if we do, I assume we will be at a better place team wise. If this team doesn't have the extra gear effort wise that I believe they do when healthy, then we won't make it past the play in game.

Dude, they didn't have Simmons in the playoffs, and they were an up-and-down team last year. Remember that? People really shouldn't be bragging about that playoff win, even though we also lost Hayward. That Sixers team was fool's gold all of last year, whom we just matched up badly to.

They are absolutely dominant this year compared to last season, so yes I think I'm warranted in my worry with them. They are going to smash us in the playoffs even if we play our best because Tatum and Brown just can't carry this team against great teams.

[GotDaSauce]

Tacko +1
Kornet -12

All respect but your 10 min PER you like to post is useless. Watch the game and you see Kornet was playing well in his minutes out there.

Sure

Sure

[denmuscles]

History is repeating itself it seems like. Brad Stevens aka Rick Pitino can’t manage Jay Tat with Brown ...Pierce/Walker....

Celtics need to trade Jaylen Brown

[aussie_pride]

He might not be the best passing center of all time like the ones you listed and yeah he might struggle against Wilt or Russell two of the best big men of all time but cmon guy, how many Centers are capable of doing what Joel is even in this soft era with no defense? He is a legitimate MVP candidate. I'm not a fan of the guy but he's a hell of a basketball player.

Shaq wasn't a skilled shooter and was out of shape but he could dribble, pass, and obviously was a tremendous athlete with that size. You wouldn't want a prime Shaq or current Embiid on your team?

Its an interesting argument. For me the jury is still out on him because I have seem him go missing too many times during the playoffs. A couple of other things that also work against him are his injury history and the fact that he seems to struggle in working with point guards. Given that he has Ben Simmons you would have thought they would be excelling in the pick and roll game but this have never eventuated. What further surprises me is that the 76ers have never really worked the Spain pick and roll with those two, which would give all sorts of teams headaches.

Ultimately though it all depends on how your team is set up and what you want your centre to be like. For me, I'm a bit old school and I believe it is defence that wins championships. The modern NBA is also all about scoring so anyone who can't shoot or put up good offensive numbers is going to get maligned. There is a genuine lack of quality defenders in the game and I think that is contributing to a lot of inflated numbers. With that being said, I really like Rudy Gobert as a big man and his defence orientated style.

With regards to Shaq, I would take an Orlando Magic Shaq or Shaq who stayed lean any day of the week. What is bizarre is that an Orlando-Shaq would probably excel in today's game more so than the Lakers Shaq. Shaq at the Magic was quick, athletic and could run the floor. Very few people remember that he would actually play on the fast break in those days! The reason why he got fat was because he was scared of getting bumped around. He could have overcome this problem in time by putting on more lean muscle mass. What is ironic is that this could have made him more dominant than he was! However, Shaq could correctly point out that he still achieved amazing things even when he was obese so in a sense he is kind of justified in doing what he did with his weight.