Sixers fall to Celtics, are eliminated from playoffs
Celtics thwart Sixers’ comeback and finish series in five >>
BOSTON » Deep into the portion of the postseason where elimination haunts, the Sixers gathered for a team dinner Tuesday. Considering the post-meal entertainment, Brett Brown was not concerned about any additional mental stress.
As Brown had done occasionally in the past, he spiced the gathering by having his team enjoy the (pick one) tricks or mystical powers of mentalist Jason Suran.
“He does some pretty incredible stuff,” T.J. McConnell said. “It was for entertainment purposes. He does card tricks and stuff, and he reads people’s minds. It was cool. It was fun. Brett does a good job with that, not having a real businesslike dinner. It was just cool and calm and funny.”
While the magician/mentalist might not have been able to accurately predict when Al Horford was likely to pick and pop and at what precise spot on the TD Garden’s parquet floor, the Sixers’ analytics department provided that service at the dual-purpose dinner.
“We had a film session at the hotel and went through the game stuff and adjustments and expected adjustments that we feel they are going to make,” Brown said. “Then we had a good dinner as a team.” The skull session followed. “I figured out a couple of his tricks,” JJ Redick said. “I’m a skeptic. But all the tricks were fun. He was fun. It was all fun.”
Whether or not such a floor show helped strengthen the Sixers’ deep bonds, perhaps only a mentalist would know.
“Any time you get together and have dinner, it’s great,” Redick said. “And when you add a mentalist, it just takes it to another level.”
At the minimum, it may have reduced some team stress.
“I don’t want too high a level of anxiety,” Brown said. “I don’t think that helps anybody.”
*** That mask Joel Embiid has been wearing? He’s not wearing it as an excuse.
Just the same … that mask … hasn’t it compromised Embiid at some level?
“I just go back to an obvious answer,” Brown said. “Like, ‘How can it not?’ I might not say it as strongly if it didn’t have a lens, that glass portion of that. If he had a clear path, you would think that might not affect it as much. But you take the mask and the lens, and I say, ‘How can it not?’”
Embiid had a March 28 collision with Markelle Fultz in which he cracked his left orbital bone. After surgery, he missed time before returning to play in Game 3 of the first-round series against Miami, but has had to wear the shield.
Without the mask, he was a 48.3 percent shooter. With it, he was shooting 42.5 percent before Game 5. He averaged 22.9 points before the injury, but 20.6 percent through the first nine games of the postseason. Those discrepancies could be a function of the reality that only good teams are in the playoffs, and that all defenses tighten in multi-game series.
Embiid has acknowledged that the mask has felt “weird.” That could be affecting him on defense, where some of his earlier switches were slow. But later in the Boston series, Embiid has done a nice job defending Marcus Morris.
“I think he’s done well,” Brown said. “He covered ground. In general, in (Game 4) he went to a different place defensively. He’s done OK.”
*** Markelle Fultz had not played since the second game of the Miami series, but Brown insists the rookie has been practicing well. “He’s doing OK,” Brown said. Sixers practices and shootarounds are mostly closed to the press. In a brief open portion Wednesday morning at the Garden, Fultz’s occasionally cockeyed shot seemed refined and fluid. He played just 14 regular-season games, including the final 10 after a 68-game recovery from a shoulder malfunction, and Brown has conceded that, all challenges considered, it was better to shift him out of the postseason rotation.
“At this stage, practice time is limited,” Brown said. “So he is among the low-minute group, with Justin (Anderson) and Richaun (Holmes) and doing all that stuff. And in the event that I need him, he will be physically ready.”
*** That no one in the Wells Fargo Center appeared more delighted than Fultz that T.J. McConnell had a career-high 19 points in his first NBA postseason start, said something about the Sixers. That’s because McConnell and Fultz technically compete for the same available backcourt minutes.
“It’s just from being a closeknit group,” McConnell said. “I’ve said this a lot: it’s not just about one person here. It’s bigger than all of us. And we’re all brothers. We’re all happy for each other’s success. And it just shows what kind of guys we have on this team.”
*** One reason the Sixers fell behind quickly in the series was the limitations the Celtics had put on their three-point shooting attempts.
The Sixers averaged 29.8 three-point attempts in the regular season and 31.4 in the Miami series. Through the first four games against the Celtics, they were averaging 28.8. While that seems but a slight decline, Brown had been encouraging them to shoot more three-pointers. But how? “Transition,” McConnell said. “We need to get stops, get out in transition and run and get to the corners in open spots.”