New players, too familiar of a result against Celtics
PHILADELPHIA >> The Boston Celtics were about to play the 76ers Tuesday, and Kyrie Irving was ready to take the night off with a strained right knee. In another situation, in another year, Brett Brown may have considered that a break.
Not this year.
Not this time.
“I wish we could play them with Kyrie,” Brown said once before the game, before stressing again, “I wish Kyrie was here.”
Irving is a developing Hall of Famer, a superstar. But Brown knew what was happening Tuesday. And it was more than a game. It was an opportunity for his 76ers to prove they could match any team, star for star. More, it was a chance to show that whatever had happened last spring was not necessarily bound to happen again. It was a chance, if only a small one, to show the Celtics that the team they’d dismissed in five playoff games was different. It was older. It was more confident. And certainly, with Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris, it was more ready to win a championship.
That’s why Brown wanted the Celtics to play, all of the Celtics, including Irving, even if he was reluctant to say it is so many words. For before the Sixers can expect to dominate the Eastern Conference and meet their preseason goal of playing in the NBA Finals, there would be that Boston impediment. And with a 112109 loss Tuesday, that issue would remain.
The Celtics are still a matchup handful for the Sixers, no matter how often Elton Brand reimagines his roster.
Brown didn’t make
On the schedule
the moment a pregame locker-room issue. In that league, where so much can change so quickly, there was no reason to formally set those stakes. Besides, no matter what would happen, there would be 25 regular-season games to play.
“I don’t go there with them,” he said before the game. “I don’t seek out to deliver that message to these guys. We sort of come in and stay steady. They understand it’s the Boston Celtics. I’m not feeling the over-reaction. I am more excited to play Boston. But it is a game in February. It’s another incredible opportunity for us to learn.”
The Sixers had years to learn. But that’s when they were young and building and collecting assets. They are not that anymore. Instead, they are experienced, tested and, on the bench anyway, trending toward old. They are spending, not accumulating, assets. This is their time. At some point, they will need to beat the Celtics … not just learn what they would do to pull that off the next time.
“When they win, they turn people over,” Brown said. “And when they win, they hunt threes, because they really are good at producing threes. You go back to that game on Christmas Day. We had 19 turnovers. That’s too many. They had 41 threes. It’s too many.”
So that was the plan: Limit turnovers and prevent 3-point shots. The Sixers had 14 turnovers, and allowed Gordon Hayward to hit six of seven
3-point shots. That was some improvement over the overtime loss in Boston in December. But not enough. While everything clicked quickly in victories over Denver and the Lakers, by Tuesday, the new Sixers looked unfinished. Harris shot 0-for-6 from distance, including a decent look that could have tied the game with
6.6 seconds left. Ben Simmons, ever tormented by the Celtics’ defenses, was sent to the line for seven free throws and clanked five. Even J.J. Redick only shot 4-for-11.
Joel Embiid sharply and publicly criticized the referees, saying they “bleeping suck,” as if they were responsible for his
2-for-8 3-point shooting or if it explained why again he looked slow against the active Boston frontcourt.
“I was sleepwalking for three quarters,” said Embiid, who provided 23 points and 14 rebounds. “And that’s on me.”
By then, all Brown could hope was that it sounded an alarm.
“It’s all about how you get ready to try to come against them in the playoffs and be better than we were last year, if we are to get them again,” Brown said. “I see the world that cleanly, whether it’s Boston, or Milwaukee, or Toronto or anybody like that.
“They are elite. They are still, in my eyes, maybe the team to beat. I have a lot of time for them.”
The Sixers have had their elite, four-star lineup together for all of three games. Two, they won. They lost Tuesday by one possession. In a league where the champion will be decided in June, there is more than enough time to forget about an icy night in February. They will host the Celtics again March 20, trying to avoid a fourgame, in-season sweep.
The Sixers have finished a 12-game stretch against much of the NBA’s cream, a challenge that was said to have the potential to define their season. They went 8-4, including 2-1 after their trade-deadline makeover.
“A lot was made out of that stretch,” Brown said. “And it wasn’t anything I said to minimize expectation, pressure, whatever. But we were going to learn a lot. I don’t think it is going to define us. Lots of people felt that this period of time was going to make or break us. And it was very dramatic, that part of the season. But I never really felt that.
“I recognized how hard it was. But I never put it in that area of make-orbreak stuff.”
So the Sixers were not broken by that scheduling burden. Yet they could have emerged from it with something vital. Instead, they were outworked by the Celtics. It was an opportunity wasted.