Eastern Conference | Round 1 | (4) Philadelphia 76ers vs. (5) Toronto Raptors (PHI 3-2)

[BullyKing]

BK you talk about the refs more than anyone else

I don't think there's a Raptor fan in this thread who wouldn't say Philly is the better team

We just don't know who the better team is. How could we when Toronto is playing 5 on 8 and Embiid purposefully injured your best player?

Look, you've been one of the few voices of reason in this thread so this isn't directed at you but the constant circle of some of your fellow fans of complaining about the refs and then complaining about others complaining about their whining is hysterical.

[First Step]

Philly isn't the better team. There's just a conspiracy among the refs because Toronto is rebuilding and they don't want them to get too far too fast.

Man’s cracked the conspiracy theory!!

[JShuttlesworth]

What's with this Philly dude who keeps talking about our multiple All-Stars? There were something like 5 teams in the East with multiple All-Stars this year, Toronto was not one of them.

Imagine counting former All-Stars as current All-Stars and then making a claim that if you have 2 you should be Top 5. Both Fred and Siakam have been fringe All-Stars at best, FVV didn't even belong there this year over Siakam.

Show me your prediction before the season where you had Toronto Top 5. It doesn't exist.

Because if they don’t switch it up and say that Toronto is better than predicted it hurts there narrative. Want to make it look like Toronto choked because somehow that makes them feel better than just winning a series. It’s not enough for them. When reality is, sixers are just a better team. That’s it.

I guess Jalen Brown and Bam weren't All-Stars this year, so my bad.

But any way you look at it

Milwaukee
Miami
Philly
Boston
Brooklyn

All these teams easily have more top end talent compared to us

[Scottie4Bro]

This series is probably a wrap. We suck. We might win game 4 with Scottie. It is what it is.

Masai has thinking to do in the offseason.

[durka]

Gotta give credit to Embiid, he got some cold-hearted revenge. As much as that shot hurt, its really hard to root against a guy getting redemption like that. I honestly thought he was gonna get the Kawhi-like bounce on the final shot in regulation.

At the end of the day the Sixers were the better and more experienced team. If precious just hit 1 free throw this wouldnt even be a discussion, but he obviously wasn't ready for that moment. Not to put this loss at his feet, he played great and just drawing that foul on Harden was an amazing moment for him. Those are the kind of moments that fuel great players to get better On flip side Embiid has used the tough loses of his past to turn into what he was last night. I don't think its recency bias to say this version of him is one of the best bigs of alltime if he can maintain this level of play.

[First Step]

This series is probably a wrap. We suck. We might win game 4 with Scottie. It is what it is.

Masai has thinking to do in the offseason.

We overachieved this year. We weren’t supposed to be the 5th seed. Philly is capped with this team, and if they don’t win it this year (which they won’t), they are going to be paying a guy like Harden insane money into his late 30s. They’ve gone all in on this core, and outside of Maxey, what else do they have in their pipeline when this team inevitably chokes against a veteran team? BKN has their picks.

Masai is thrilled with how this team performed, and despite falling short in the playoffs, the trajectory of the team is up up up

[BullyKing]

This series is probably a wrap. We suck. We might win game 4 with Scottie. It is what it is.

Masai has thinking to do in the offseason.

I don't think it's really that far off. FVV is clearly extremely hobbled so I wouldn't be too hard on him for a poor series. I think the main thing is moving Siakam. His inability to dribble the ball is just too much for someone who's going to be a top 2-3 option on offense. Move Siakam, continue to make winning moves on the margin (where Masai excels) and wait for the next superstar to demand out elsewhere.

[stormi]

We're good fam. We're good.

This cope LMFAO

It's 2022 dude.

[JShuttlesworth]

This series is probably a wrap. We suck. We might win game 4 with Scottie. It is what it is.

Masai has thinking to do in the offseason.

I don't think it's really that far off. FVV is clearly extremely hobbled so I wouldn't be too hard on him for a poor series. I think the main thing is moving Siakam. His inability to dribble the ball is just too much for someone who's going to be a top 2-3 option on offense. Move Siakam, continue to make winning moves on the margin (where Masai excels) and wait for the next superstar to demand out elsewhere.

I don't think Masai trades Siakam, I would be very surprised.

Barnes / Siakam / Anunoby is just an awkward front 3 though, with a lot of redundancies. Siakam and Scottie just overlap so much. I just don't see it fitting long term.

We got away with it during the regular season because it seems like someone (between Anunoby and Siakam) was always injured, so we just plugged Scottie in wherever we needed him. Barnes and Siakam do play well together in a 2-Man game.

I really do like all three of those guys, but Scottie and OG are the future. OG is very quietly averaging 24 PPG this series. He isn't necessarily a primary scorer, but he can be super effective in a support role.

[TheGameWinner]

No ref intervention and we lost by one possession. I can live with that. Sucks we caught the injury bug - but even at full strength i expected it to go to 7.

Pascal was clearly gassed.. couldn't dribble. Fred is the slowest i've ever seen him. Good on Sixers. I don't think their antics will work against better teams, and their bench is weak, so TBD how far they go.

[bebopdeluxe]

Doc out-coaching Nurse … how’s that even possible?

Because Nurse is the most overrated coach in the league? Take away the year he was gifted a top-5 player rental (and a finals against a maimed team) and he's done way worse than Casey did. He obviously has less talent at his disposal than the Sixers here -- they were never going to win, even if they had Red Auerbach coaching. But I don't get the hype. At all.

Awful awful take. Nurse is a genius. Every roster in the playoffs has an elite bucket getter on there team aside from the Raptors. They committed to trying a completely unorthodox roster construction and in year 1 of the experiment he's got the roster to the 5 seed. Gurantee you there's maybe 2 other coaches in the league that would've even gotten this roster to .500. I also thought he coached a great game today and our 2 pluggers just **** the bed. His schemes on Embiid have made life really tough on him, he just hit some circus shots today.

Nurse is a good coach, but he's no genius. His "gameplan" to be physical with Embiid and whine to the refs gets no marks from me.

Raptors are a good team with a lot of good young players. They will be heard from.

[TheGameWinner]

We're good fam. We're good.

This cope LMFAO

It's 2022 dude.

ya - but after watching Bargnani / Mike James... it's something I often fondly reflect back on without thinking it was possible. Don't hate

[TheGameWinner]

This series is probably a wrap. We suck. We might win game 4 with Scottie. It is what it is.

Masai has thinking to do in the offseason.

I don't think it's really that far off. FVV is clearly extremely hobbled so I wouldn't be too hard on him for a poor series. I think the main thing is moving Siakam. His inability to dribble the ball is just too much for someone who's going to be a top 2-3 option on offense. Move Siakam, continue to make winning moves on the margin (where Masai excels) and wait for the next superstar to demand out elsewhere.

He can dribble. I think he was just exhausted guarding your monster Embiid... hard switches etc. That's the trade-off with hard doubling and scrambling... fatigue.

[bebopdeluxe]

We're good fam. We're good.

This cope LMFAO

It's 2022 dude.

Yeah. Definitely a loser take. Whatever gets you through the night.

[fbalmeida]

We're good fam. We're good.

This cope LMFAO

It's 2022 dude.

Yup. And it still feels good. Having reached that mountaintop renders you a moment of pure ecstasy and joy that you can invoke at any time. Works as intended.

[HotelVitale]

BK you talk about the refs more than anyone else

I don't think there's a Raptor fan in this thread who wouldn't say Philly is the better team

I mean, there was literally a 20+ page thread plus hundreds of posts across other threads specifically on the Raptors getting screwed by the reffing. Many many Raptors fans were taking pretty crazy stances to scapegoat the officiating. It was brutal to read and try to engage with, and it was still going very strong until like 12 hours ago.

There’s gotta be some kind of self-awareness or accountability among raps fans for that. There was easily 10 times as many posts about that as about anything else in the series, tough to just say ‘no ones saying that now, so it didn’t happen.’

[JShuttlesworth]

BK you talk about the refs more than anyone else

I don't think there's a Raptor fan in this thread who wouldn't say Philly is the better team

I mean, there was literally a 20+ page thread plus hundreds of posts across other threads specifically on the Raptors getting screwed by the reffing. Many many Raptors fans were taking pretty crazy stances to scapegoat the officiating. It was brutal to read and try to engage with, and it was still going very strong until like 12 hours ago.

There’s gotta be some kind of self-awareness or accountability among raps fans for that. There was easily 10 times as many posts about that as about anything else in the series, tough to just say ‘no ones saying that now, so it didn’t happen.’

Your post is exactly what I'm talking about.

I didn't say anything about the refs, here you are complaining about whining Raps fans to me.

[Snotbubbles]

These board will be so much more bearable once Toronto and hopefully Brooklyn get eliminated.

[Sisqo]

BK you talk about the refs more than anyone else

I don't think there's a Raptor fan in this thread who wouldn't say Philly is the better team

I mean, there was literally a 20+ page thread plus hundreds of posts across other threads specifically on the Raptors getting screwed by the reffing. Many many Raptors fans were taking pretty crazy stances to scapegoat the officiating. It was brutal to read and try to engage with, and it was still going very strong until like 12 hours ago.

There’s gotta be some kind of self-awareness or accountability among raps fans for that. There was easily 10 times as many posts about that as about anything else in the series, tough to just say ‘no ones saying that now, so it didn’t happen.’

No one is saying it didn’t happen. There was a group of them who wouldn’t stop crying about the refs. What we are saying is it’s stopped and the ones who didn’t bitch are trying to move on and discuss the game. But now you have a select few including a Philly mod who won’t drop it and keep derailing. I think the ones who are actually frequent posters who just want to talk about the series really just want to move on.

[Tor_Raps]

Philly isn't the better team. There's just a conspiracy among the refs because Toronto is rebuilding and they don't want them to get too far too fast.

Finally someone who gets it