The Philadelphia 76ers are set to take on the Boston Celtics to kick off their return to the playoffs. However, with Joel Embiid out to start their first round series, not a lot of people have them staging an upset over their arch rivals. Sure, there might not be a lot of pressure on them to actually win this series compared to their higher-seeded opponents, but that is not the case for head coach Nick Nurse on an individual level.
Nurse will be duking it out on the sidelines with Joe Mazzulla, who is one of the frontrunners to win the Coach of the Year award. Both of them have already won a championship, although the latter;'s body of work this season has been one of the featured highlights for Boston. After all, he did manage to extract 56 wins out of his group despite missing Jayson Tatum for most of the campaign.
On the flip side, many have been calling for Nurse's job since last season. His in-game management continues to baffle fans and pundits alike at times, and the prevailing sentiment is he has not been able to optimize the roster well enough to withstand absences from key players here and there.
Nick Nurse will be on the hot seat for the 76ers if he gets badly outcoached by Joe Mazzulla
Mazzulla is a master of his craft. He is one of the best coaches in the league when it comes to adjusting on the fly, and his flexibility to alter his game plan when need be to make the opponent uncomfortable is one of the biggest reasons why Boston still managed to finish the season as a top-two team in the Eastern Conference.
As such, a lot of eyes will be lasered in on how Nurse counters the opposing man on the sidelines. Mazzulla will undoubtedly try to exploit the weak links on the 76ers, from their lack of a scoring presence among their big men and in all likelihood, their inconsistency from three-point range.
Nurse has to be capable of winning the chess match against Mazzulla at the very least. While it may not always necessarily lead to wins, it is imperative for him to be able to make life tougher for the Celtics from a gameplanning standpoint.
If he gets badly outcoached instead and the 76ers get sent packing in disappointing fashion anew, Nick Nurse will likely face the strong possibility of getting jettisoned this offseason. That's just the way it is now, especially for a franchise still looking to be competitive in the years to come.
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