Credit: David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

The Boston Celtics came one step closer to securing a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, ousting the 76ers 101-85 and sending the Sixers one step closer to closing up their doors for the year.

The Celtics outscored the Sixers in the second half 54-35, after the Sixers had a 3 point halftime lead. Brandon Bass outscored the Sixers himself 18-16 in the third quarter. Kevin Garnett also had a nice bounce back game, with 20 points and 6 rebounds. Rajon Rondo had himself 13 points and 14 assists as well.

Before we get into actual game observations, I have to address the elephant in the room: the officiating. No, they probably didn’t cost us the game. But yes, they didn’t help us one bit, and with a fairly evenly called game it likely would have been much closer. It wasn’t so much that the Sixers were called for bogus fouls while the Celtics weren’t called for any. It wasn’t that lopsided. Aside from the phantom call called on Evan Turner when Ryan Hollins fell down somewhat hilariously on an alley-oop attempt, the fouls called on the Sixers were fouls by the letter of the law. The problem was that all kinds of contact was allowed at the other end, especially in the second half. The first half had so few foul calls because the Celtics, quite honestly, didn’t make much contact with us. In the second, all kinds of shoves and hand-checks and audible slaps went uncalled, and I have no idea why that was the case on one end and not the other. When Boston fans recognize it, then it’s time for an evaluation.

My philosophy toward officiating is this: correctness, not consistency, is the key. I’d rather the officials call the games like they should be in the rule book, not just the same for both ends. If all officials did this, then we wouldn’t have a problem game-to-game with officiating, because everyone would know what to expect going in. That’s why I have more of a problem with the fouls not called on Boston, because they got away with tons of clear fouls that would be called by the rules. Of course, both correctness and consistency were off, but I’d rather have calls going both ways than no-calls both ways.

Anyway, let’s get into the two main reasons for the loss:

1. The Sixers’ terrible perimeter scoring

Remember when all we needed was one or two bigs to show up to win? Well, that happened in Game 5, but the perimeter players couldn’t produce to match. Elton Brand scored 19 points in what may have been his best postseason game this year (it’s in competition with Game 1 in Chicago, also a loss) – he had his midrange jumper back and looked healthier, though that might just be Brand being inconsistently energized at his old age. Spencer Hawes didn’t have an awful game for his standards, scoring 10 points on 8 shots. And Lavoy Allen chipped in with 12 points of his own.

We got the scoring needed from those guys that’s been lacking. But the guards couldn’t match. Evan Turner scored 11 on 13 shots. Lou Williams scored 9 on 10 shots. Andre Iguodala scored 8 on 10 shots. Jodie Meeks failed to score at all. Only Jrue Holiday scored more points than shots taken among the perimeter crew – but he only took 6 shots. I can’t begin to describe how backwards that is for Jrue, by the way. With no Avery Bradley for Boston, he took only 6 shots. I do have to give the Celtics defense some credit for this – in the second half, he was trapped on pretty much every opportunity in the pick-and-roll, forcing the ball out of his hands and often forcing turnovers. But he certainly could have attacked the paint in other ways. His second half no-show certainly contributed to us scoring only 35 points. And since no other perimeter players actually brought offense to the table, we stood little chance of winning. We would need a perfect defensive game, which we didn’t have.

2. Brandon Bass’ second half explosion… courtesy of Rajon Rondo

The Celtics finally did something I had kind of suggested earlier on in the series: use Paul Pierce and Ray Allen solely as decoys and floor spacers in the second half, and beat the Sixers 3-on-3 with Rondo, Garnett, and someone else. That someone else turned out to be Brandon Bass, and at times Greg Stiemsma. Allen is hurt, so his greatest contribution is going to be as a threat of what he can do. And the Sixers were determined to stop Pierce, trapping and double teaming him and forcing the ball out of his hands. Those two weren’t going to be the Sixers last night: they were determined to prevent that from happening.

But when you trap and double team, someone will get an open look. As it turned out, Bass was the guy. The Sixers, knowing that Rondo could beat Turner off the dribble pretty much whenever, decided to hedge the pick and roll with Brand or Lavoy to stop Rondo from getting into the lane. When that worked successfully, it resulted in a Rondo turnover, such as the steal by Brand in the first quarter that got Turner a fast break dunk. But when unsuccessful, it results in one defender guarding two offensive players, namely one big guarding both Garnett and Bass. The Sixers would rather give them open shots than Pierce or Allen (because 3 is worth more than 2, but you knew that already). And since Brand and Hawes are slow, the opening is actually pretty wide for Rondo to exploit. Stiemsma got 8 easy first quarter points off of that. In the second half, they primarily were burned when Thaddeus Young and Lavoy were on the court. They were able to recover to Bass on the pick-and-roll quicker than the starters, but his finishing ability plus his deftness for drawing fouls got Bass easy points near the basket. Plus, they had some nice interior passing between Bass and Stiemsma when the defense was actually able to get to one quickly, giving the other easy shot opportunities.

While Bass scored the points, you have to give credit to Rondo for getting the ball to Bass exactly where he needed it, too. On the other end, when trapped Jrue Holiday was unable to do the same.

Hopefully this broke down some of the major issues enough to help you see where we went wrong. We’ll need to correct these problems for Game 6 on Wednesday, because if not it could be the last of the season.

Credit: Greg M. Cooper-US PRESSWIRE

Once again, the 76ers and Celtics will meet up, this time with a tied series and the Sixers having all the momentum. While there’s little more to look for than I’ve already gone over for the first two games (you can find those here and here).

First, some details. The game will start just after 7:00 EST on TNT. There aren’t expected to be any major injury issues keeping players out that have already played, though that may change. There’s no fewer than 7 players dealing with known issues. I likely will only see the final 15 minutes of the game or so, which sucks but sometimes life gets in the way of things.

In this post, I’ll focus instead on adjustments each team may make. I’ve thought of two for Boston and one for the Sixers, though certainly there are more to be made and looked for.

Celtics: More Avery Bradley

In Game 2, Avery Bradley suffered a separated shoulder after getting hit by Elton Brand on what had been ruled a clean block. Bradley would disagree. The injury knocked him out of the game and significantly reduced his playing time, though he would fight through the pain and return for the entirety of the fourth quarter, where he helped the Celtics make up an eight point deficit.

His +18 plus/minus rating, while not requiring caps lock under the rules established by Cardboard Gerald, was the best on the Celtics – the only other player in this range for the Celtics was Kevin Garnett, with a +16 – and for good reason. When he played on the ball to start play, the Sixers could not get into their offense. It wasn’t a situation where the Sixers ran a play and couldn’t get open – he would pester the ball handler (either Jrue Holiday or Evan Turner) and force the Sixers to abandon play calls. The Sixers have enough trouble scoring within our half-court offense. We often couldn’t get to that stage because of Bradley.

His offensive impact was pretty large too. He hit two of his three point attempts and, unlike some other Celtics, he’s also a formidable threat in the open court with the younger Rajon Rondo.

You have to wonder how much the shoulder injury will hurt him in this regard, because he likely cannot be as aggressive as he’d like without risking re-injuring himself. But his defense, even with an injury, seems too good to hold back.

Celtics: Finding a groove, and a role, for Paul Pierce

The biggest lie in the NBA today (okay, it maybe not as big of a lie as Kobe supporters can come up with regarding their champion) is that Rajon Rondo is an elite play-maker like Chris Paul and Steve Nash. Here are the facts: Rondo is great at giving players the ball as soon as they do all of the work of getting themselves open as a part of the Celtics offense. He should be given credit for putting the ball in their hands, as that’s the definition of an assist, but he should not be regarded as greater than or equal to Chris Paul or Steve Nash when it comes to play-making abilities. His supposed brilliant play-making abilities led having a regular-season offense worse than ours, by offensive efficiency standards (24th, versus the Sixers’ 17th overall ranking). He’s a very good player who can do amazing things, but the team numbers and his individual ones just do not add up.

I will mention, though, that the Celtics offense is markedly worse without Rondo, so he’s obviously doing something right, but he also plays primarily with their best offensive players. His value is tougher to gauge than pretty much anyone’s in the league, though obviously I have my own thoughts on it.

The reason why I bring this up is because Paul Pierce is struggling mightily right now, mainly because no one is creating offense for him when he can’t do so himself. Pierce is generally relied upon, with the help of some (illegal) KG screens, to get himself open. His patented elbow shot has always been a late-game option for the Celtics, which he does without Rondo’s help. But with his injury, and the sparking defense of Andre Iguodala, he’s been unable to create anything other than a ton of turnovers. And because Rondo is not used to actually creating for Pierce, getting Paul engaged on offense has become rather difficult for Boston.

His best use would likely be as a spot up shooter or a decoy for other players on the offense, because the injury won’t be going away and neither (hopefully) will be Iguodala. Instead, go away from Pierce, get arguably the league’s best perimeter defender away from the majority of your offense, and hope that the other four players on court produce. If so, he could be the beneficiary of others and fill a role in the Celtics offense.

Sixers: Separate Turner and Garnett as much as possible

No, I’m not worried that they’ll get into fight, or a one-on-one match up between the two. Simply put, Evan Turner should be on the court for every minute that Garnett sits, and play Turner only when unavoidable while Garnett plays.

A major key to the Sixers win, in terms of plus/minus, was Lou Williams. This seems surprising, because Lou was God-awful pretty much the entire game, like he had been the entire postseason. But his being in the game and Turner’s not being in the game made a huge difference for the offense. The change was made early in the game, and since the starting lineup was outscored 15-2 by Boston’s, it seemed like a solid choice. Brent Koremenos called for Turner to be cast aside to help the offense before game two on HoopSpeak.com, and his explanation is actually a perfect summation of what happened when the Sixers switched from Turner to Lou in Game 2:

… when Iguodala shares the court with Evan Turner, he is normally relegated to spot up duty while Turner operates out of the pick-and-roll. This isn’t because Turner is a better pick-and-roll ball handler — far from it — but because Iguodala is also serviceable when spacing the floor and Turner, well, isn’t. This awkward dynamic is a byproduct of Philly’s desire to pair the versatile defensive stalwarts on the other end of the floor.

But if the Sixers really want a shot to win this series, Doug Collins has to unleash Iguodala, even if that means playing Turner far less. Going for long stretches with a lineup of Jrue Holiday and Lou Williams supporting Iggy in the backcourt would create the space needed for Philly’s unheralded star to carve up Boston’s defense with a pick-and-pop pairing of his choosing.

Given that Boston starts both Rondo and Avery Bradley, going small does no harm to Philly’s defensive plans until Ray Allen checks into the game. Even then, Holiday has both the size and ability to chase Allen through screens well enough for Iguodala to turn it into a net positive at the other end. In this series, Philly will need every net positive they can find in order to grind out a place to the conference finals.

Literally, this exact thing happened in Game 2. I wonder if Doug read Koremenos’ post.

But I want to add something else: Iguodala (or anyone else) was still largely unable to finish inside because Garnett was on the court, protecting the rim like he always does. The Sixers got several open jumpers, but struggled to get inside. And even without Garnett, Iguodala is a terrible finisher in traffic. Enter Turner, who isn’t a great finisher but is much more willing to get to the rim. Without Garnett, Greg Stiemsma or Ryan Hollins (HAHAHAHAHA) will likely just foul or possibly block his shots in that case. I’ll take my chances on them.

Not having Avery Bradley on the court would help this as well, but Bradley might be forced to guard a smaller player on the court, like Lou or Jrue, while Evan plays at the 3 spot.