ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

philly in a tough spot now morey strip mined another team

I knew harden was cooked like 2 min into the game he tried to foul bait on a drive and refs didn’t bite. As someone who’s been cheering against him for more than a decade there’s not many things more satisfying than refs not calling a harden foul bait drive and he ends up on the ground while your team runs a fast break the other way.

― Spottie, Sunday, May 14, 2023 6:44 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol yeah i took note of that play def

Embiid should stop trying to win the chip, just concentrate on playing 60 amazing supernova games, might be fun.

James Harden says he hasn’t thought about what will go into his free agency plans this summer.

Harden says he believes in this group’s potential. “It’s only Year 1 for us together.”

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) May 14, 2023

harden should just chill in houston for the rest of his career

today i’m also thinking of the PJ tucker voodoo magic the sixers deluded themselves into thinking would fix all their problems. and he was actually pretty great today!

Joel Embiid: “That’s the best team in the league. … losing to them, seven games, I thought for the most part we played hard, and we came up short.”

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) May 14, 2023

just watching the highlights and the adjustment to get embiid switched on to tatum turned out to be brilliant.

joel will skate as usual but the sixers are built around two guys who have literally never done anything meaningful in the playoffs, and have been at it for long enough that it's not a coincidence. like the fact that james harden's best playoff game will likely be a game 1 in a round 2 that he ultimately lost couldn't be more perfect.

actually think the crows are coming home to roost for joel this time, getting the mvp then shitting the bed in game seven is too much to overlook, bobby marks does these off season guides when teams get knocked out thatre usually pretty dry front office stuff but he just gets madder and madder thinking about embiid and the sixers here lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FjqJPg7Ywo

embiid might skate in philly bcuz if they turn on him what else do they have left? they have to hope he’s their version of dirk where one year it all just clicks. but i think nationally it’s going to take a while for his reputation to recover to where it had been. PJ tucker getting in embiid’s face was spun as some awesome galvanizing moment that showed how this year was different for the sixers, but that image takes on a different tone given today & i feel like that’s gonna be the lasting memory that most ppl have of him from this series. there’s nothing he can do in the regular season at this point to change anyone’s mind about who he is as a player, and there is going to have to be a noticeable shift in how he plays not just mentally but in terms of his game in order for him to reverse the trajectory of his career on the biggest stages

and, you know, he likes to talk a big game. i like joel a lot, i think there’s real vulnerability there that makes him a much more identifiable human than a lot of his peers, and he isn’t afraid to show that, which is cool. but i’ve also been saying for years that he’s a front runner who doesn’t really back up all the social media & first quarter bluster that is so part & parcel to his persona. which means that he’s just gonna have to swallow stuff like this & the rest of what comes this summer bcuz it’s a completely justified reaction to how he’s carried himself this far

Ben Simmons posted this on his IG story 🤷‍♂️😬 pic.twitter.com/N848q90S7U

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 14, 2023

xp damn, bobby really went in. i wish he would cut loose more often, he usually tries to be nice/neutral on the shows and pods.

he just got carried away lol he was genuinely disgusted with the sixers

simmo with captioning on during live sports

ben simmons is a clown for that post of course.

i am biased on this but jayson tatum constantly demonstrates vulnerability and thoughtfulness and no one cares. embiid does too but also tries to weaponize it so that nothing is ever actually his fault, but i guess he's a more interesting quote or something.

joel thinks hes cute, major character flaw

damn bobby marks seemed personally offended in that video

actually think the crows are coming home to roost for joel this time

trading away a player after an MVP regular season isn't anywhere in the cards that I see. it just isn't done and i'm not sure what other crows you're referring to could be roosting for him. letting harden walk, otoh, could def happen. he's aging, expensive, and his crap record in the post season is more easily blamed than Embiid's, who's younger, homegrown and still fairly popular.

to be fair to Joel it must be uniquely frustrating for a guy like him to come up short again and again. the last 3 MVPs Giannis Joker and him are all known as hoops unicorns who dominate both ends of the floor and can just score at will and so there's this sense they could elevate their game to the point where they're just unbeatable. Joker I guess had the excuse of really not having a lot of decent teammates but Philly has been "knocking on the door" for like 6 years now. Embiid's had some great playoff games but also a lot of 'em like this, where he just conks out in a big game despite the other team not really having an answer for him

simmons suggests on his podcast that embiid reinjured his knee on the play where he stepped on smart which is entirely possible

melton shot 3-15 and 1-9 from three in the final 2 games. i’ve been wondering about him because the grizzlies are dying for even decent wing play and they didn’t seem to trust him last year and then willingly traded him away. granted it was for a first & philly was obv happy with that trade at the end of the season. but he doesn’t seem like someone you can trust in the playoffs even if he does have a hot shooting night once a series

i think melton is a fine player off the bench at 8m/year

Yah he was cold but just shouldn’t be shooting that much, harden kept kicking it to him. Prob best suited to be a defensive specialist like GP2 or something.

i’ve been saying for the last two seasons that shooting is a problem for them and i’m always told i’m wrong but they don’t have a single wing player who needs to be guarded in a playoff series. tobias averaged 13 ppg on 26% shooting from three in this series. house and niang played a combined 10 mins today. tucker is never guarded.

daryl has done a fine job of putting competence around embiid which is gonna be good for high playoff seeds but come these high level series they don’t have a single role player who is above average on both ends of the floor. all their guys are one way guys and it’s really slanted toward defense. maxey is the closest thing they have to an elite shooter but spot up shooting or just being a spacer is not his game, and he is always gonna be the target on defense. they have some really big picture stuff to figure out but at bare minimum they need to find multiple guys who can reliably make three pointers.

Sixers had the best 3P% of the regular season, though they were middle of the pack in 3PA.

Other than Maxey, none of their 3P shooters can really get their own shot and Maxey has to pick his spots because he's so short. If he were two inches taller . . . .

They always seem like they have too many one dimensional guys. Defensive specialists, shooters, whatever. Would kill for a couple of Brogdon, White, Smart interchangeable guys you don't have to hide.

I don't see any moves that get them over the hump because at the end of the day this is an Embiid issue.

Re: crows coming home to roost for Embiid, it's not that Philly will now trade him, it's that the media and fans will stop making excuses:

https://www.phillyvoice.com/instant-observations-sixers-celtics-game-7-joel-embiid-james-harden-doc-rivers/

This performance is exactly what people have worried about with Embiid for so many years, supporters and critics alike. The missed shots are one thing, but he looked completely shaken and unprepared for this moment just days after saying out loud that this was a "fun" opportunity. It's easy to paint him as a frontrunner — a guy who is as good as good gets when things are rolling, but can't be counted on to pull the Sixers out of tough situations. There was no fight from him when they needed it, no extra effort on the glass or toughness befitting a star player who was in this moment.

Over the last two games of this series, Embiid had a chance to quiet all the doubts about his personal legacy up to this point. The criticism he has received — whether it has been in good faith or as part of useless MVP debates — will grow louder locally and nationally, and he can't blame anyone for that other than himself. This was simply not good enough for the best player on a team hoping to win a title.

It will take a long time for his reputation to recover from this game, but the bigger question will be if it ever does. We're deep enough into his career to ask whether this is simply where the road ends for a team led by Embiid. Short of supplying him with an ass-kicker as his co-star, which they had in Jimmy Butler back in 2019, the evidence is stacked against this guy as a title-winning leader.

which they had in Jimmy Butler back in 2019

ouch

The Embiid situation is interesting. He’s overrated. I’ve said this from the beginning. But the most interesting story is the Celtics pick-and-roll defense. It was wild. The Embiid-Harden pick-and-roll is, on paper, incredible. Yet the Celtics were able to shutdown this offense, sometimes, like yesterday, entirely. It didn’t even matter who was on the court. I came into this series thinking Jaylen’s defense was slightly overrated and Robert Williams’ defense was wildly overrated but … the proof is in the pudding.

This performance is exactly what people have worried about with Embiid for so many years, supporters and critics alike. The missed shots are one thing, but he looked completely shaken and unprepared for this moment just days after saying out loud that this was a "fun" opportunity. It's easy to paint him as a frontrunner — a guy who is as good as good gets when things are rolling, but can't be counted on to pull the Sixers out of tough situations. There was no fight from him when they needed it, no extra effort on the glass or toughness befitting a star player who was in this moment.

OTM—everyone claims (rightfully) about Doc’s inability to make timely adjustments but Embiid is somehow even less successful at making timely adjustments.

mazzulla putting rob into the starting lineup changed the series it totally gummed up that pick n roll and doc did not have a counter

having tatum hunt embiid on the perimeter was another good adjustment, took a big defensive advantage embiids rim protection and turned it into a disadvantage embiids permitter defense

one odd thing about harden being one of the most prolific three point shooters ever is he really likes to shoot them in isolation and not nearly as much in the pick and roll, a lot of time he totally commits to going downhill off the pick and never looks to pull up even when he has space, its weird hes just ignoring a whole option there doesnt seem great

when he does shoot off the pick and roll its almost a different play one that hes playing for the shot

harden’s entire game now is predicated on being able to make the step back 3 in isolation. if he can hit that shot he has a good game. if not he’s borderline useless to of course actively harmful the worst player you’ve ever seen in your life

he was good doing point guard stuff this year and even yesterday he was doing some decent drive and kicks but like his game in general it was just too static and predictable for the big stage, hes just not a fast dynamic basketball thinker which is bad for the playoffs when good teams are taking away all your plans

yeah i mean in real games. in the regular season he is a good point guard but whatever

hes just not good in the playoffs, has never been good in the playoffs, i guess everyone knows that

i guess they did try the empty corner, not sure this is really "a play" tho

Tobias sets a screen to bring Rob into the action, Rob wants the switch though.

Clock winding down and here comes Brogdon on the double. Harden tosses up an airball.

The key again is poor spacing allowing the Celtics to zone up. 3 Sixers are hovering near the corner. pic.twitter.com/qf4Sx3GeAq

— Pull up shoot (@NElGHT_) May 15, 2023

celtics had phillys offense in shambles

Celtics get creative again with the peel switch on the Harden-Embiid PnR as Tatum rotates over.

I thought this was a weird Harden TO, but someone, *anyone* should be lifting to the wing here. Instead, PJ and Maxey both set a screen for Melton who’s camped in the corner. pic.twitter.com/qZhlH4Cv2h

— Pull up shoot (@NElGHT_) May 15, 2023

The key again is poor spacing allowing the Celtics to zone up. 3 Sixers are hovering near the corner. pic.twitter.com/qf4Sx3GeAq

what on earth is embiid doing here. clearing the lane for harden to 'cook' i guess??

yup, and then on that last play, what is tucker doing? he just gets lost in no man's land

it's gotta be weird playing with harden, he gets a lot of assists out of his drive and kick but it doesn't really get you in the rhythm of moving without the ball

xxp i think the move embiid is doing there is called "taking a breather"

yeah ton of standing around waiting for him to do his thing xp

many tatum highlights in here some real sicko stuff https://www.celticsblog.com/2023/5/15/23723991/tatum-delivers-10-takeaways-from-boston-celtics-philadelphia76ers-game-7

predix
celtics in 5
nuggets in 6

another ILH bowl finals woul.d be nice

pretty stoked for the wcf fascinating match up, if ad can play like he has so far it should be tight if not nuggs win easy

nugs 6
celtics 6

i can only make the one prediction, until it comes true