Breaking down the Sixers’ final loss of the season

The Boston Celtics defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 114-112 and eliminated Philadelphia from the playoffs.

The Boston Celtics eliminated the Philadelphia 76ers with a 114-112 win in Game 5, moving on to the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston won because they played superior one-on-one offensive and defensive basketball.

Here’s the breakdown for the Sixers’ last game of the 2017-18 campaign:

STARTERS — EVEN

Philadelphia’s starters outscored the Boston starters 95-94. How’s that for a wash?

BENCH — EVEN

Boston’s bench scored 20 points on 18 shot attempts, while the Sixers’ bench scored 17 points on 15 shots. Again, a wash.

Marcus Smart managed to get 13 free throw attempts. Both Boston’s Marcus Morris and Philly’s Ersan Ilyasova struggled shooting and Robert Covington looked lost out on the court, as he did all series.

COACHING — ADVANTAGE CELTICS

The difference in this game and the entire series was Brad Stevens’ ability to make game-to-game and in-game adjustments, which Brett Brown struggled with all series.

Boston played their own version of old-school, low post one-on-one basketball in Game 5. Stevens attacked Philadelphia individually, depending on the match-ups. Marcus Smart took J.J. Redick in the post, Jayson Tatum took T.J. McConnell off the dribble or inside at will, and Al Horford punished Dario Saric down low.

Brett Brown struggled with player match-ups in this game. In the second half, Brown had the combination of T.J. McConnell on the floor with Ben Simmons and Robert Covington. That combination had trouble getting quality looks at the basket, let alone score.

Other questions on match-up coverages: when Aaron Baynes was on the bench, why was Joel Embiid covering Marcus Morris leaving Dario Saric to cover Al Horford?

Justin Anderson should have been given minutes earlier in the series and taken some of McConnell’s and Covington’s minutes as well. Anderson plays with an aggression, which was needed on this 76ers team.

Brad Stevens is a better and more experienced playoff coach than Brett Brown. To be fair, Philadelphia did not have the players in place to close out tight games and that is not the coach’s fault.

Philadelphia was up four points with less than two minutes left and could not move the series back to Philly. Maybe next year will be different.

STATISTICS — ADVANTAGE CELTICS

Boston had 41 free throw attempts, seven more points from the line and turned the ball over six less times (16-10) than Philadelphia, which was the difference in a close playoff game.

PUTTING THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

At the beginning of the season, I wanted Philadelphia to get to the playoffs and win at least one series, which is what happened. Joel Embiid played an entire season almost injury-free and Ben Simmons converted to playing point guard and played well.

More importantly, the players should have learned what holes they have in their games and work on improving this summer.

Hopefully the coaching staff learned that the Euro-style passing game offense is an efficient offense to run during the regular season, but when the playoffs begin, players have to be able to get their own shots.

Hopefully management will spend money wisely in the offseason and address needed upgrades.

In short, Philadelphia had a very successful season as the process journey continues.

Next: Sixers and Celtics' rebuilds the same, but different

NEXT — GOING FORWARD

A complete analysis of Philadelphia going into next season player-by-player — who will be back, who may not, at what dollar amount and what they need to work on.