We all know the saying. The Philadelphia 76ers have not lost a game in three years. Any defeat was due solely to Brett Brown’s incompetent coaching
Fallacy: Brett Brown and his assistant had no clue
Fact: Head coaches really make their mark in the playoffs, when they can match wits head to head, game after game, with the opposition.
Miami coach Erik Spoelstra was heaped with praise for his brilliant coaching last season, as he guided the Heat to the NBA finals. But when Spoelstra faced Brett Brown in the first round o the NBA playoffs back in 2018, Brown’s Sixers easily defeated him, four games to one.
Brown had a team that year with virtually no playoff experience. It was the first time the Sixers had even made the post-season since 2012. Yes, the Sixers had a more talented team (although the Heat did have Bam Adebayo, and Dwanye Wade was still there) but Spoelstra’s coaching against Brown did not make a dent in the series.
Nick Nurse is now seen as one of the premier coaches in the NBA after guiding the Toronto Raptors to the NBA championship in 2019.
However, when Nurse faced Brett Brown’s 76ers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, no one was talking about Nurse badly outcoaching him.
Quite the opposite, Brown made some moves that flummoxed the Raptors.
He put in a big lineup that caused huge matchup problems. It made 6-foot-1 guard Fred VanVleet virtually worthless. By the end of the series, the media questioned Nurse as to why he bothered playing VanVleet, as he was contributing nothing.
Brown also took Ben Simmons off the ball and put it in Jimmy Butler’s hands to run the offense. This put a lot of pressure on the Raptors defense.
If Embiid does not get sick in the middle of the series, and general manager Elton Brand had not stuffed the roster with four centers who could not play at this level (as the Sixers got killed whenever Embiid was not in the game), the series probably ends in six games, in the Sixers favor.
So if Brown is so incompetent, why couldn’t Spoelstra or Nurse outcoach him when it counted.
As for Brown’s assistants. Despite the perception the team underachieved, all of them got employment with other NBA teams.