Playoffs: Second Round Game 1 : (5) Atlanta Hawks @ (1) Philadelphia 76ers l Sunday 6/6 l 1:00pm l ABC

[ConstableChaos]

Gotta make Young work on D - having Danny Green out there getting cooked, missing 3's and being unable to dribble (I think he had 1 dribble drive against TY for a layup) is a massive liability - Gives Young a hiding spot.

If Green is going to be so ineffective defensively - They did start going to bogy v green early in the 2nd when BS was on young, i'd be looking to give The Max or Hill Green's minutes and get Young in a few pick and rolls and makde him expend some energy on D. Hawks good barely get it over half court in the last few minutes of the game

Simmons gotta start shooting underhand free throws

[HotelVitale]

Maxey is your #1 perimeter option. Only problem is that he's only 20 and the coach doesn't know how good he is yet.

I agree but he keeps playing the way he did today and there's a much better chance his butt will be stapled to the pine for the rest of the playoffs. He played badly today.

Man, I'm as charmed by Maxey as any of us but wth are you guys talking about? Maxey is obviously not able to carry an offense from the perimeter now. He has two moves for creating right now--1) get a big on him from the top of the key and try to outrun him to the rim and 2) dash into a pn'r and pull up or throw a lob--and neither is very good, with 1) being very easy to stop after it takes you by surprise first time or two and 2) being a shaky and not very efficient way to make a living. I really have enjoyed seeing him step up and not shy away from the moment, but that doesn't mean I forget the many many plays he's had where he has nowhere to go or no idea what he's doing. No need to trick your brains because rookies are invitations to dream big, Maxey's really fun when he's hitting shots but he's never been seen as a high-volume creator and has no standout abilities to create. Just let him be an exciting change of pace and cross your fingers that he develops an amazing midrange jumper, great euro-steps and counters, and perfects passing out of the pn'r over the next couple years.

[DaBolden76]

The blame on Simmons was laughable. He played a good game except those missed FT however some missed FTs turned into 3 pt plays. If it wasn’t for Simmons defence, Philly would have been flogged. 4 steals and that fantastic block on the fast break.

[Skates]

I’m not so sure Dwight isn’t the one to sit in this series. Substitute Maxey in early, Thybulle too, play Simmons as the small ball center in the second unit with Curry and Green. Doc has to mix and match those two units and give George Hill more to do in the flow too. The regular substitution patterns just won’t work in this series and between Maxey and Hill, Simmons playing point center part of the game is a response to what the Hawks have out there. Dwight has done nothing wrong, but the matchups are against him in this series.

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

Maxey is your #1 perimeter option. Only problem is that he's only 20 and the coach doesn't know how good he is yet.

I agree but he keeps playing the way he did today and there's a much better chance his butt will be stapled to the pine for the rest of the playoffs. He played badly today.

Agreed, He was burned numerous times today on defense and he was out of control on offense. To expect him to be anything more than an occasional spark off the bench is probably too lofty at this current time. Benching Simmons in place of him is an ever dumber idea.

[HotelVitale]

The blame on Simmons was laughable. He played a good game except those missed FT however some missed FTs turned into 3 pt plays. If it wasn’t for Simmons defence, Philly would have been flogged. 4 steals and that fantastic block on the fast break.

I thought he was very good, too, wasn't one of his best games or anything but he kept them alive for stretches and really helped the team cut through frustration a bunch of times. Defense made a meaningful difference and I was totally happy with his shot creation for others and his own dives to the bucket. If the defense woke up sooner and the game wasn't a 25-point blowout 17 minutes in, this would've been a solid B/B+ game from Simmons.

[DCasey91]

Trae Young is very hard to stop, I’m not a big fan at all when the defense shifts over especially when he’s one of the better skip passers/passing in general in the league. We have a tendency to give open wing threes like usual.

Trae off a screen makes Danny on him a non factor pretty much then he has multiple options：

- Skip pass open threes which is deadly for us and great for them because they have shooters for days
- Floater
- Layup
- Dump it or lob it to the big guy.

Best option is probably the floater or long threes imo. We have Embiid no need to collapse our own defense by shifting over a wing defender it’s not going to do squat in the end (NBA in general). You don’t have a 15+ wingspan why it still happens ad nauseam in 2021 is beyond me.

Thybulle is the best bet we have on Trae. Has the pace to keep up.

Teams still haven’t realized giving up open threes in the corners or on the outside is the worst possible outcome.

They are small we are big, trying to keep pace with them is not good in the end.

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

Trae smoked Danny Green today. It's gonna have to be Simmons or Thybulle on him if we are to have any chance.

[DCasey91]

Trae smoked Danny Green today. It's gonna have to be Simmons or Thybulle on him if we are to have any chance.

After 5mins a rational person would think to themselves this young man is cooking an old guy they are running a different race. Hang on we have a literal Spider-Man on the bench seems like a good idea. Trae was in everything. Had double digit assists but his play created much more then that.

[Eyeamok]

Trae smoked Danny Green today. It's gonna have to be Simmons or Thybulle on him if we are to have any chance.

Funny is this same suggestion was posted at the start of the thread. I agree with you. Trae young just came in and punched the 76ers in the mouth and said "Now what!" Respond 76ers respond. 76ers win series 4-2.

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

Trae smoked Danny Green today. It's gonna have to be Simmons or Thybulle on him if we are to have any chance.

After 5mins a rational person would think to themselves this young man is cooking an old guy they are running a different race. Hang on we have a literal Spider-Man on the bench seems like a good idea. Trae was in everything. Had double digit assists but his play created much more then that.

Yeah, Green was completely frustrated. Their bench whooped our ass too. I didn't like Docs initial bench lineup at all. As soon as he subbed those guys in, the ATL lead went from 13 to like 26. Their bench vrs our bench was a mismatch all day and Doc should have seen that. We had Maxey and Curry in the backcourt together and they countered with length and shooting. Not to mention we also had like 10 turnovers in the first 8 minutes of that game. Can't do that against a team like Atlanta because that just gives their shooters more opportunities to get into a flow and knock down shots. This was disaster from six minutes in until the end.

[Tomjas]

Doc wasn’t good today

[TTP]

Maxey is your #1 perimeter option. Only problem is that he's only 20 and the coach doesn't know how good he is yet.

I agree but he keeps playing the way he did today and there's a much better chance his butt will be stapled to the pine for the rest of the playoffs. He played badly today.

Agreed, He was burned numerous times today on defense and he was out of control on offense. To expect him to be anything more than an occasional spark off the bench is probably too lofty at this current time. Benching Simmons in place of him is an ever dumber idea.

Yeah he was bad and he was pretty bad last game too. He should not be getting playoff minutes right now if our goal is to maximize our chances of winning. He's a fine prospect and he's fun when he's on, but he's just not there yet.

I'd probably give Furkan the 9th man minutes right now, but no one has really stepped up and won the job.

[DCasey91]

Watch on YouTube

25/7 at halftime and a lot of it was Green and Harris ffs. Thanks Doc great gameplan this game is squarely on you. I mean he slaughtered us with a big breakout lead in the first quarter, but really Green/Harris?

Also majority bench unit lineups in the playoffs? Cmon Doc even in the Wizards series it was illogical/dumb.

Harris on an island with Young that’s a crap philosophy. And Green never bothered Young just has too much pace to go where he likes.

Play man on man with Thybulle. Thybulle’s weakness which can be a strength at times is he himself like to be behind the offensive player and go for blocks.

That’s a big big no no on Trae. Like Luka you cant be behind or on his hip, both are too offensively gifted. Got to play him face up as much as possible.

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

I don't like the Maxey/Curry backcourt pairing at all (but I get why Doc does it). In fact, if Maxey is playing, he can't be paired with another short guard against this Hawks team. It just wont work against their length. Simmons should be playing 40 minutes a game in this series. Look for George Hill to get some more time in this one. We've all talked in length about how Curry will eventually be phased out and I think this is where it starts to happen. I love his shooting, but this will not work playing him starter minutes against this team.

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

I agree but he keeps playing the way he did today and there's a much better chance his butt will be stapled to the pine for the rest of the playoffs. He played badly today.

Agreed, He was burned numerous times today on defense and he was out of control on offense. To expect him to be anything more than an occasional spark off the bench is probably too lofty at this current time. Benching Simmons in place of him is an ever dumber idea.

Yeah he was bad and he was pretty bad last game too. He should not be getting playoff minutes right now if our goal is to maximize our chances of winning. He's a fine prospect and he's fun when he's on, but he's just not there yet.

I'd probably give Furkan the 9th man minutes right now, but no one has really stepped up and won the job.

Furkan was toasted today too when he played. I'm not even sure we can use him at this point. We don't have another athletic wing to put out there unless you count Paul Reed as such and that's an even bigger reach than Maxey taking over the offense lol. It's going to have to be Green, Simmons, and Thybulle playing the bulk of the wing minutes for this to work. Green was total liability today, Simmons continues to get babied, and Thybulle can't shoot (although he has been much better in these playoffs then last year).

[Slick SickSir]

Id give all our picks we can give and simmons and thybulle and milton and any pick swaps they want for lillard. Id try like hell to keep maxey but if we had to i would probably give him as well.

I want embiid to have a legit chance with lillard

You wanted to trade Embiid 3 days ago

You must have me confused with someone else because that is not accurate at all

[HotelVitale]

Trae Young is very hard to stop, I’m not a big fan at all when the defense shifts over especially when he’s one of the better skip passers/passing in general in the league. We have a tendency to give open wing threes like usual. Trae off a screen makes Danny on him a non factor pretty much then he has multiple options：
- Skip pass open threes which is deadly for us and great for them because they have shooters for days
- Floater
- Layup
- Dump it or lob it to the big guy.
Best option is probably the floater or long threes imo. We have Embiid no need to collapse our own defense by shifting over a wing defender it’s not going to do squat in the end (NBA in general). You don’t have a 15+ wingspan why it still happens ad nauseam in 2021 is beyond me. Thybulle is the best bet we have on Trae. Has the pace to keep up. Teams still haven’t realized giving up open threes in the corners or on the outside is the worst possible outcome. They are small we are big, trying to keep pace with them is not good in the end.

I definitely agree, we simply cannot give up open corner 3s at this volume and expect to win--it's not a viable strategy, period. But I think the strategy you're proposing needs to be more complicated, in short because Trae settles for floaters and long 3s if he doesn't get something easier off the pn'r and we have to address that head on. In the first half Trae had a lot of room in the pn'r and he was running back and forth to get picks until he got Embiid/Dwight backpedaling and guessing, which meant he sometimes got to the cup (if Embiid leaned back too much on the big) and sometimes got up a lob (if Embiid or Dwight left that path open) and sometimes jogged into the lane and then fired a great pass to an open shooter. Dude is very very good at all of that, and he only resorts to the long 3s and floaters when those things are well defended. There's no simple formula for taking that away, can't pretend that there is.

In the 2nd half Doc overcompensated for that and basically did the nuclear option on Trae--not only showing hard off pn'r but actually having both defenders blitz and stick with him 30+ feet from the cup. That's the Steph-Dame 4th quarter defense, and while I actually liked it as a strategy when we were down like 23 pts, on the average play it's just going to lead to someone being wide open for a 3 (or having a clear lane to the cup). There has to be some happy medium where Thybulle or Simmons is on Trae, and then when the pn'r comes the double-team/blitz sticks on Trae for maybe a second before the help defender rushes back to cover his guy. That would slow Trae's initial dive to the cup and still leave the possibility that Trae lasers a pass and starts a chain reaction, but it leaves a lot less margin for error and would often stifle all the easy things and cause the offense to have to restart (or take a rushed shot). Remember the Hawks are a team of shooters--not slashers--so if we can figure out a way to limit Trae's pn'r dominance and also take away open shots, we're in a pretty good spot.

[TTP]

Maxey getting more minutes than George Hill this game was pretty dumb too. George Hill is a very good player with extensive playoff experience - why is he playing only 11 minutes? We were turning the ball over like crazy tonight and Hill's someone you can trust to take care of the ball, play good defense, and remain cool under pressure. We should have him playing 20-25 minutes and he can fit into a ton of different units.

Doc can stagger our lineups better so we're not using these 100% bench units. Our bench played a total of 64 minutes divided among 6 guys (ridiculous that we're playing 11). Play Dwight 8-10 when Embiid sits. Play Matisse 20-25 and let him cause chaos - our team functions best when we're generating turnovers and getting out in transition. Play Hill 20-25. Play Furkan or Maxey or Shake the rest - like 10 min at most.

Play Simmons/Embiid nearly always together and let Tobias do the heavy lifting in the bench heavy units.

[Slick SickSir]

Dame has 2 to 3 years of elite play left. Embiid has 2 or 3 years of elite play left most likely maybe less with his injury issues. You treat dame and embiid as the same age.

Dame was every bit as good this year as years past. Someome compared him to kemba that is laughable. Dame is way better offensively than kemba has ever been and does not have a bad knee.

In fact dame is one of the most healthy stars in the game. Incredibly reliable.

His gravity is harden like. You simply can NOT leave him anywhere on the court at all.

Even if we had to throw in maxey with simmons shake and 4 firsts.. u keep green amd thybulle and shake around him amd embiid.

Wtf are we even talking about? Its a no brainer.

Problem is it may be unrealistic because portland may rightfully view ben as a negative asset much like tobias at this point

Hell maybe even can get covington back with it