The Philadelphia 76ers’ youth has struggled in high-pressure moments, leading to a 3-0 series deficit.
Barring a historic comeback, the Philadelphia 76ers‘ season will likely come to an end soon. It might not happen on Monday, but the chances of them winning four straight games are close to zero. Not with how well Boston is playing.
The Sixers entered the conference semis as heavy favorites. Boston was without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, while Philly won 20 of its last 21. Nobody expected it to be a sweep, but people expected the Sixers’ talent edge to prevail.
Now we’re facing the possibility of a sweep, only the Celtics are the team on top. The Sixers’ Game 3 loss — which consisted of mistake after mistake, even in overtime — was one the most demoralizing losses this franchise has suffered in quite some time.
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Nobody should be overreacting. The Sixers are a young team that won 52 games and has plenty of cap space entering free agency. Even if they can’t get LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to smooth over some of their biggest weaknesses.
Still, even with the Sixers being well ahead of schedule, this is a difficult way to go out. Completely outclassed by a team missing it’s best players. Brett Brown has made a handful of mistakes, but blaming this series on him is foolish.
This series loss will boil down to two things: an imperfect roster and youth. It took a whole season, but the Sixers’ youth finally caught up to them at the worst of times.
Ben Simmons has been downright awful through three games. He had his moments in Game 1 (and even Game 3), but for the first time in his brief career, he made mistakes that are characteristic of most rookies.
Take the end of Saturday evening’s game for example. He grabbed an offense rebound with his team leading and the shot clock turned off at the end of the game. Rather than holding onto it and setting the Sixers up for a trip to the free throw line, he shot — and missed.
The Celtics went on to take advantage of that and win the game. Philly also dealt with a ton of turnovers, giving us a nice flashback to the pre-January squad.
On top of that, Simmons cycled through every negative bullet point on his pre-draft scouting report. He was passive in important moments, refusing to attack obvious mismatches when Terry Rozier or Shane Larkin was switched onto him.
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Boston’s defense took away some of Simmons’ passing lanes as well, throwing different looks at him and taking advantage of his non-existant jumper. As logic would have it, missing a year with a broken foot doesn’t give you unfair non-rookie powers.
As for Joel Embiid, the Sixers’ big man got a bit black hole-ish in Game 3. It’s tough to blame him with how little his teammates were contributing, but too often the Sixers simply sat back as he went into his bag and tried to score in isolation.
The Sixers need to emphasize off-ball movement whenever Embiid has the ball. Make sure he’s able to make plays for others instead of putting his head down and looking for a shot every time. That’s part of the reason Al Horford was able to block him twice on important possessions. He knew Embiid wasn’t giving the ball up.
Moving forward, it feels like the Sixers are still a piece or two away. The Celtics were able to track down way too many mismatches on the perimeter, starting with Marco Belinelli. Adding another defensively apt wing who can space the floor feels like a priority. They would also benefit from another shot creator.
Regardless of how you view this series and the Sixers’ future, though, one thing remains abundantly clear — they’re still young, and this team wasn’t quite ready for this moment.
Game 4 in Monday night at 6 PM E.T.