April 23, 2022
The Sixers collectively failed to show up in a Game 4 loss to Toronto, with the Raptors keeping the series alive in a 110-102 loss for Philadelphia.
Here's what I saw.
• Tobias Harris is one of the few guys I think can walk out of this one with some semblance of pride. Philadelphia has issues right now, starting with Joel Embiid's injury and James Harden's diminished scoring success and going down through their depth. But Harris has helped mitigate some problems on both ends, playing with the confidence to make tough shots and lockdown challenging assignments on the other end.
Frankly, he's in this column today because he was one of the only guys who even bothered to care for most of this game. His effort on the boards and in transition was at least most of the way up to the level they needed to hit to have a chance in this game, and with his teammates still not doing much in the second half, Harris continued to work, coming up with an excellent play on the break late in the third quarter to send them into the fourth quarter with a chance to win.
The last two games have been filled with moments where the team has lacked pace, but Harris has been one of the few to keep the game and the ball moving. On the rare occasion when Harris isn't playing with pace, it's because he's the guy who ended up with the hot potato at the end of a stagnant possession, and you can't hold it against him that he needs a moment to survey the floor and figure out where to go.
A small positive in a sea of shit on Saturday, admittedly.
• A Bball Paul playoff three is as close to an outright, no strings attached "good" as we can get in this one. A truly terrible effort.
• Philadelphia had all the incentive in the world to try to get this series over with on Saturday afternoon, between Embiid's hand and other bumps and bruises for the rest of the guys. A week off probably isn't going to heal much for the big guy, but taking him out of harm's way means something, and it gives them a week off before what would presumably be a much tougher series.
Excuse it because of the 2 p.m. start if you want, but the Sixers simply did not come prepared to play in this game. They might not have turned the ball over 14 times like they did in Game 3, but I would argue their performance in this first half was worse. There was next to no urgency, poor off-ball defense, miscommunications on the offensive end, all sorts of basic errors that left them in a dogfight with a team that honestly didn't play all that well themselves. But what the Raptors did do is make use of their strengths, something the Sixers could only hope to do with their star player in compromised form.
The offensive rebounding battle that Philadelphia somehow managed to win early in the series has swung dramatically in Toronto's fashion over the last two games. Thaddeus Young nearly matched Philadelphia's offensive rebounding count for the half all by himself, darting around slow-footed Sixers and brushing past a version of Joel Embiid who did not appear super interested in trying to come down with rebounds in traffic. It's not like the Raptors did anything off-script, changing their identity in one last desperate act to save their season. This is who they have been and are, and the Sixers seemingly forgot that four games into a series.
With Joel Embiid rolling, they have the margin for error to get away with things like that. When he is not, and when he looks like he did on Saturday, attention to detail and effort matter a whole lot more.
• After playing an excellent Game 3 that I thought went under the radar a tad this week, James Harden showed up Saturday and had an absolutely horrible decision-making game. At this point, you're not showing up to the arena expecting him to have dominant scoring efforts, but the Sixers do need him to be a consistently excellent leader from the perimeter, moving chess pieces around the floor and finding the gap in the opposing defense, wherever that might be.
Some of that starts with Harden actually being willing to attack the openings the other team is offering. Harden's total unwillingness to shoot a catch-and-shoot three is something that the Raptors (and plenty of other teams) have caught onto more as the series has worn on, dialing back their closeouts on him when the ball swings to an open Harden on the perimeter. That makes it hard for him to find the edge and turn the corner, limiting the types of possessions where he can get to the rim and score.
In theory, this is the sort of situation that you bring Harden in for to begin with. Embiid is clearly struggling and you need a pick-me-up from someone who has been through playoff wars before, and whatever you think of Harden's resume in the postseason, he has played a ton of playoff games to fall back on that experience. But the ability to dial it up and say "I got this" just hasn't been there outside of a few odd games this season, and that's a reflection of the guy who Harden is, rather than what you want him to be.
The upside case with Harden is that he still has a ton of tricks in the bag, plenty of intelligence to fall back on without that high-end scoring output. But that stuff didn't show up much on Saturday, and it was a big part of why the Sixers sputtered in a closeout situation.
• You typically expect ups and downs for young players in the playoffs, but Tyrese Maxey has been so good that it's kind of shocking when he has a clunker like this one, ineffective and anonymous for most of the game. If anything, this game was crying out for Maxey to pick up some of the slack. Opportunities to do so were few and far between, and when possessions swung to Maxey on the perimeter, the decisiveness that has helped him make a leap this season did not show up very often.
Maxey's role in this series shrunk during this road trip to Toronto, partially for understandable reasons (like an Embiid heater in Game 3), partially for reasons they're going to have to clean up, and partially because he fumbled the opportunities that he did have, struggling to score at the rim around Toronto's length or in transition in scramble situations.
Doc Rivers spent a full minute during one timeout talking with Maxey at halfcourt, upset with either something he was doing or something the offense was doing that Maxey could control. It didn't do much to change the course of the game, but every one of the power players within this group should be in his ear the next couple of days. They need him.
• Danny Green's inability to capitalize on the open corner threes he was getting all game was a huge swing factor in this one. He has perked up in a big way down the stretch, looking a bit more like they guy who was a critical piece on last year's team, and an even bigger component on a handful of title teams. But the toll of playing him heavy minutes, heavier minutes than the head coach thinks he's capable of at this point in his career, seems a bit obvious. He's not going to be able to dial it up and deliver every night, and Saturday was a pretty tough one for him.
• Georges Niang looks like he can barely move right now, slower in space than he has been for most of the year thanks in some part to a knee issue. He hit some absolutely massive shots in this game, keeping the Sixers within reach during a few moments where it looked like the game was about to get out of control. But he is just drawing dead in space, and fouled out because of it.
• The gap in offensive execution between the first two games of the series and road games in Toronto is so large that it's almost impossible to quantify. There are very few guys that plays that should feel happy about how they looked in this one, and they have to get their act together if they want to end this in Game 5.
• Trying to make heads or tails of how Embiid looks can be borderline impossible at times, because his grimaces, handshakes, and spills to the hardwood can be slightly exaggerated. The initial show of pain does not always mean he's legitimately injured, and Embiid has shown the ability to shake off little knocks and keep moving.
This thumb issue, though, looks like something that might just derail the playoff run this team believes they're capable of. There were a lot of moments throughout the game where Embiid would shake his hand, grab his shorts, or otherwise react to contact in the painted area, and he doesn't look to be having an easy time of it right now. Getting through this series is one thing, but the Sixers are not going to be able to trade punches with heavyweights if Embiid is compromised, which is how it looks at the moment.
Normally, I would criticize Doc Rivers for the way the offense skewed in this game, going heavy on post-ups with a center whose hand is not in top shape. But I'm not sure he's actually better equipped to play within a heavy pick-and-roll offense. Catching soft, lobbed entries from Harden or gentle bounce passes in the post probably exposes him to less pain and danger than catching passes with mustard on them while he's on the move. There's not really a good option to work around your most important player having an injury on their shooting hand. He is going to get whacked and deal with pain no matter what he does.
The health issues don't excuse the areas where Embiid simply didn't offer them enough, as on the rebounding front, where he was one of many Sixers players who did not take their job seriously enough early in this game. It's easy for me to say, because I'm not the guy who is dealing with what I think is significant pain in my dominant hand. But he has to at least feign like he's going to chase after rebounds, and the Raptors seemed to sense his hesitation and attacked Philly on the glass relentlessly as a result.
Embiid's decision-making also left a whole lot to be desired, his execution against doubles much less crisp than it was to open the series. The Raptors have figured out that he wants to make a lot of cross-court passes over the top when pressure comes, and they keyed on those passes throughout the day, turning the Sixers over a few times on Embiid's sloppiness. The hand injury also doesn't explain Embiid's downturn on the defensive end, where his footwork was way off and he was beaten to the rim by guys who he has proven more than capable of shutting down, a la Pascal Siakam.
End of the day, I do feel bad for him. Embiid has played through some minor issues this year to put together the most complete campaign of his career, only for one more issue to surface during the playoffs that doesn't allow him to be at his best. Tough pill to swallow. But his attempt to work around the issue was not exactly inspired.
• The other night, I thought there were legitimate reasons to feel good about Philadelphia's response to adversity on their path to a victory. You could squint hard and try to tell yourself the same after this one, the Sixers hanging around and hanging around despite playing poorly. This time, though, I think it basically just says that the Raptors aren't very good. A team with more firepower (and I get that Fred Van Vleet was knocked out of the game with an injury) would have beat their asses.
• Scott Foster and Ed Malloy in a potential closeout game, that's pretty interesting.
I'm only teasing, even if that is a classic "extend the series" crew. As I said in Game 3, nobody played well enough to yell and complain about officiating. Harden and Embiid spent a lot of time complaining about the officials, and that energy could have been channeled into just about anything else.
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