GRADES: Sixers choke again as Hawks take 3-2 lead

An embarassing night for the Sixers brings back terrible flashbacks to the “not so good days”.

The Philadelphia 76ers headed back home to a packed Wells Fargo Center to try to go up 3-2 within the series against the Atlanta Hawks.

The switch seemed to have been switched for the Philadelphia 76ers (at least for the first three quarters). Furkan Korkmaz started off the game with a “HEALTHY 3”, as Marc Zumoff would say. The shot must have ignited the rest of the squad as they went 8-for-8 shooting forcing the Hawks to use a timeout early on. The aggressiveness on both ends of the court set the tone for the rest of the quarter.

Oh, you thought Joel Embiid was going to look super fatigued this game? Embiid had us all fooled as he basically had a perfect 11 minutes of play in the first quarter. He went eight for eight shooting, two rebounds, one assist, and one block for 17 points. He and Capela got a little heated as Embiid mouthed off something which earned him a technical foul. The WFC ate it up.

The horrendous second unit started off the second quarter, but thankfully Shake Milton could bail them out by hitting his first three (and shot) of the game.

https://twitter.com/sixers/status/1405322025619574787

It was hilariously ridiculous watching the Hawks try to double Embiid with Clint Capela and Trae Young but just get totally shut down. Jo wasn’t the only one out there killing it, Seth Curry completed a 3-pointer hat trick to extend the Sixers’ lead. With five minutes left in the half, Atlanta revealed their desperation as they started “hack-a-Ben”. Luckily, it didn’t last long. Shortly after, Capela got extremely flustered and gave Jo an opportunity to do his signature flop to get a tech shot.

The Sixers entered the second half in a good spot as they led 62-40.

The second half started out the same way the previous games’ second halves went. They looked a bit disjointed offensively. Curry stepped up and ended up shooting 7-for-11 from beyond and making Young chase him through screens.

Simmons really showed up defensively, espcially when he was assigned to guard Trae.

Even though Trae went on to hit a 3 after this play, this was an impressive defensive effort on Ben’s part (who should have been Defensive Player of the Year).

Ah, the fourth quarter, where do I begin? The Sixers lead simmer to just 11 with 10 minutes left in the game. It took Doc about three minutes into the quarter to throw his starters back out on the court to avoid a Hawks domination (*spolier alert* it was already too late).

The turnovers ran rampant and the pressure was put on Joel and Seth to make something spectacular happen. They had a combined 71 points, while no other Sixer was in the double figures.

Atlanta finally pulled themselves ahead of Philly, 105-104…The Sixers were up as much as 26 points during the game. In a sunning fashion, Embiid missed two free-throws that would have put the Sixers within one point with ten seconds left.

Grades from the Sixers’ gut-wrenching Game 5 loss at home.

39 mins | 37 pts | 13 reb | 5 ast | 2 stl | 4 blk | 5 TO | 12-20 FG | 2-4 3PT| 11-13 FT | 3 PF | +11| 

Despite missing the two free-throws at the end, Jo had an incredible game. It was reassuring to see him back out there and look pretty much normal. And he did it on on a torn meniscus! Can’t ask too much more from him for next game.

13 mins | 5 pts | 2 reb | 0 ast | 0 stl | 0 blk | 1 TO | 1-5 FG | 1-2 3PT| 2-2 FT | 3 PF | -8 | 

Disappointing game for Shake tonight. He didn’t take nearly as many shots as he should have. Next game he needs to get into it early by throwing up shots when he has the chance.

38 mins | 36 pts | 7 reb | 0 ast | 2 stl | 0 blk | 1 TO | 13-19 FG | 7-12 3PT| 3-4 FT | 4 PF | +6 | 

Truly insane game for Seth. He set a new career playoff high in points. Not much else we could ask Seth to do.

38 mins | 8 pts | 4 reb | 9 ast | 1 stl | 1 blk | 2 TO | 2-4 FG | 0-0 3PT| 4-14 FT | 1 PF | +7 | 

Underwhelming performance from Ben tonight. Defensively he had some good moments, but his free-throws really dented the Sixers’ chance of winning.

38 mins | 4 pts | 4 reb | 3 ast | 0 stl | 1 blk | 2 TO | 2-11 FG | 0-3 3PT| 0-0 FT | 4 PF | -10 | 

You would not have even noticed that Tobi was on the court at times. He didn’t do much that stuck out or that helped the team. He absolutely needs to change something before next game.

The next two games are win of go home situations. We need to see a huge change if they want to pull this thing off.