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After breaking the last of the Brooklyn Nets' brakes on Monday night, the Philadelphia 76ers find themselves in a similar situation to last year's Eastern Conference semifinals against an opponent they did not face. not played well in the regular season.
Last year, the Sixers lost three out of four games against the team that eventually put them off, the Boston Celtics. This year, the story is the same, but the opponent is different: the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors took three out of four in the regular season.
The Sixers have seen some changes since the 4-1 loss to the Celtics. The only constant – since 2013 – is head coach Brett Brown. Personally, I did not say that, but I have friends asking for Brett Brown's work. There are "#FireBrettBrown" ads on Twitter since the beginning of the season.
My feeling about Brett Brown is the same since the beginning of the season. There must be a step forward in some way.
(WARNING: ALERT OF PERSONAL FEELINGS!)
Brett Brown did not have to go to the NBA Finals to save his position. I did not think the Sixers would arrive at the start of the season. When they traded against Jimmy Butler, I still did not think they had enough. When they traded with Tobias Harris, Boban, Mike Scott, etc., I still did not think they had enough.
I thought Toronto was better from 1 to 8. I thought Milwaukee was better from 1 to 6. It could very well be the series where not having a pretty decent bench bites the Sixers in the ass.
Mike Scott was better. James Ennis III was BETTER, but the Toronto bench is better and I think the Milwaukee bench is better if the Sixers qualify for the Eastern Conference finals.
Justin Carter has analyzed in depth the possible rotations for this series, and there are a lot of positives. There are certain scenarios in which the Sixers must take advantage of the situation and force Toronto to play Kawhi and Lowry perhaps more than they want.
That being said …
A premature exit at the hands of Nick Nurse, Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors would probably cost Brown his job.
After winning 52 games last year, the Sixers have won 51 games and reached the playoffs two years in a row for the first time since the 2011 and 2012 seasons. The Sixers eliminated the Miami Heat in five games before losing to the Celtics.
In this series, Brown was simply downgraded by Brad Stevens. There is no other way to explain what happened when you consider that the Sixers had a lot more talent than Boston in this series.
Brown was flown over. Saying the opposite is wrong.
Maybe you're reassured that this was Brown's first round of the playoffs as head coach – an important distinction because in San Antonio, Popovich is obviously the voice on that bench. When you call the shots, it's very different.
This time, Brown is (technically) the most experienced playoff coach. This is the first time Nick Nurse sits on the big chair after the Raptors sent Dwayne Casey to Purgatory – or the Detroit Pistons, my bad.
Nurse … has experienced guys, though, to soften the educational blow a bit, so to speak. He has Kyle Lowry – who has had a lot of (disappointing) playoff races. He has Kawhi Leonard – an MVP in the finals of the NBA. Marc Gasol is old but a veteran of the playoffs. Toronto was the team I did not want to see in the second round because I still think we can play Milwaukee in a seven-game series.
This series is frightening even from the point of view of "talent on the ground". This will come to the benches and, more importantly, to training.
Brown made some nice adjustments. After seeing TJ McConnell be moderately sung by D'Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie in the first game, Brown gave Jimmy Butler more time as a substitute playmaker for Ben Simmons. Most of the points and minutes of TJ have arrived in the lost time.
There was a lot of stress that Brown had more pick and roll games for Simmons as a Rolls player. (Yes, more than Simmons in the roles, more than that against Toronto!) This injury led to Simmons' best game in the playoffs: 31 points, 9 assists, 11-13 FG, 9-11 FT.
Our own Sean Kennedy broke both of these deep wrinkles earlier in the day.
Joel Embiid's match-for-match status did not make things easy, but Brown was able to organize his game plan on the fly relatively well against Brooklyn. He would do well to make the adjustments against Toronto, because it will become very quickly otherwise.
Brown said this about his new group of guys against Toronto after the team's decisive ranking:
I mean, we all understand our success in Toronto, and that's not flattering. But this is not directed to the team we have. And you can credit it or discredit it. I discredit him. I think we have a new group, we have a new opportunity.
This is an interesting point. Can you discredit the regular season? May be. Let's look at all four games against Toronto:
- October 30 – Lost 17 in Toronto: Ben Simmons 11 spin-off game (pre-Butler trade)
- December 5 – Lost by nine in Toronto: first match against Toronto in Jimmy Butler's time
- December 22 – 25 wins in Philadelphia: no Kawhi for Toronto
- February 5 – Lost by 12 in Philadelphia: (I can not defend this one, both teams were full at that time.)
The Raptors have never seen the last phase of the 2018-2019 Sixers. They may not have a lot of movies on the team, because the five starters did not really play together. The first round against Brooklyn was really the starting point for this group, and that was all.
Until now, in the playoffs, the Sixers have the best five-plus / minus training at +17.8 with Simmons, Redick, Harris, Butler and Embiid, according to NBA.com. They scored more than 120 times three times in five games and had less than 65 players. It's crazy!
Guess who is number two of the five best men over / under. Yep. The Toronto Raptors. Lowry, Danny Green, Kawhi, Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol have a score of +16.8 in the playoffs and a score of 81. They were playing against the Orlando Magic, so you want, but the Sixers were playing against Brooklyn, so .. . ((shrug of the shoulders)).
It will be a series of punches and counter-throws. Brown has even admitted that his team will be hit when he declares that his team "will be put to the test as soon as we are in Toronto". Will the Sixers answer the very important follow-up question?
If the Sixers lose in a series of six or seven highly contested games, that's one thing.
If they lose in four or five games and if no game is near, we risk losing that magnificent beard of salt before next season.
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