Sixers must keep ‘Edge’ without crossing it
CAMDEN, N.J. » J.J. Redick made it through two games of the Sixers’ first-round playoff series, surviving every shirtgrab, overboard screen and hack that the Miami Heat would employ. Already, he had it figured out.
“They probably feel they have a blueprint to beat us,” he said, before Game 3. “And we can expect a similar approach.”
The Heat didn’t beat the Sixers, instead falling in five games. But what Redick saw early, Miami continued to supply late. And what Redick sensed was accurate — that the blueprint to defeating the Sixers, if not in the first round, if not in the second, but at some point in what could be a four-series task, will be to do two things to their skin... Bruise it … and get under it. Because there was no remaining value to revisiting the cagesport that was Round 1, Brett Brown has spent the quieter moments before Round 2 trying to morph it onto something positive. Yes, he saw Ben Simmons flipped in mid-drive onto his lower back. Yes, he saw Goran Dragic smack the Sixers’ point guard in the back of the skull. Yes, he saw the shirt-grabs and no-layup strategies that the Heat was employing.
And, by the way, how did Justise Winslow escape suspension for actively trying to break the Sixers’ equipment in the middle of a game?
The way Brown saw it, the younger Sixers, specifically Simmons, won that game-withinthe-game not just by advancing to the Eastern Conference semifinals, but by remaining eligible to play once they arrived there.
“No,” Brown said, when asked if the Heat’s methods were out of line. “In a crazy way I love it.”
With that, he would casually revisit the very tactics he had tried to pretend were simply reflections of a typical NBA postseason.
“Look at Ben Simmons’ reaction to Dragic hitting him in the back of the head,” Brown said. “He didn’t react. He easily could have as a young player. And there possibly could be suspensions if you overreact.
“He did the somersault in midair and landed on his back. Justise Winslow crushes Joel’s mask. There’s physical play and people having to break each other up. But we didn’t cross the line. I think it’s a major testament to our team and to our young players that they were able to play in an incredibly physical, back-at-them, no-backdown way that belies their experience.”
Blueprints. They come in different sizes. And if the Heat felt it had a useful plot to defeat the Sixers, it was an idea that can spread. And if it spreads to better teams, in more crucial situations, in a tighter series, at a moment when the Sixers face elimination, how will Simmons and the other players react? Will they be so calm? Will they fight back? And, no, by the end of that series, the Heat wasn’t the only team grabbing the shirts of cutters, no matter how hard Brown will campaign for a market-corner on the good-conduct medals.
“Moving forward, the playoffs get more physical, more intense,” said Redick, who has been in every postseason since 2007. “In the next round, it will be a lot more of the same.”
And so it would figure that there will be more of that in Round 3 and even more in Round 4. But can the Sixers sustain that? Embiid is still recovering from an orbital bone fracture. Even with his mask, how much longer can he absorb contact? Simmons is an entertaining talent. A major reason is his intensity. Rarely, will he shake an opponent’s hand after hard contact, even of the accidental variety. If he is slapped every other quarter for the next 21 games, can he be expected not to throw a counter-punch?
“We feel like we play with the marching orders and the mantra that I have talked about since I got this job,” Brown said. “In our locker room, you’ll see the signage: Philly Edge; Philly Hard; Philly Real. We have versions of what an edge is, what hard is, what real is. I think that we walk our line well. We don’t feel like we cross the line. But this is Philadelphia. This is a blue-collar city. I want our personality and the spirit and style of play to mirror the city. I think we’ve done that. And I think we’ve done it in a way that hasn’t crossed lines.”
That’s the way it has to be if a team wants to survive four rounds. Basketball fights equal suspensions. If the wrong Sixers are suspended, then there will be no championship this year. And since the tournament doesn’t always line up as favorably as this one has for the Sixers, it may mean no championship soon ... or ever.
When healthy, the Sixers would be a matchup problem for any team ever to have played the sport. Thus, the predicted response: Physical play that can draw them out of their rhythm and into conflict.
That’s the blueprint to bump them from the playoffs early in a year when they are capable of playing late.