Sixers’ Embiid was empty when it mattered
PHILADELPHIA >> You can blame the Sixers’ collapse and their crushing loss in Game 5 to the Atlanta Hawks Wednesday night on several factors.
The subs blew a chunk of a 26-point lead in the fourth quarter.
Joel Embiid ran out of gas after putting up the bulk of his 37 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots in the first three quarters.
Tobias Harris, who scored at least 20 points in every game of this postseason, got just four points.
Former Sixer Lou Williams lit the home team up for all but two of his 15 points in the second half.
Even Doc Rivers could be blamed for mismanaging the last minute.
If you just do the math, however, Ben Simmons was the biggest culprit in the 109-106 setback at Wells Fargo Center, which rocked almost as much from the post-game booing as it did when the Sixers were doing almost everything right. Simmons missed 10 of 14 free throws.
That’s why the Sixers are down 3-2 in the series and facing an elimination game Friday night in Atlanta. Repeat, 4-for14 from the foul line.
“This one hurts,” Simmons said. “We had it. I think we gave it to them.”
Based strictly on defense, Simmons did his job in the first
half. Young was a nonfactor in the early-going. The savvy Simmons waited for Young to lift off, then used his wicked wingspan to block the passing lanes.
Then it happened, like it has in basically every playoff game Simmons is part of anymore – hack-a-Ben. And it worked in the sense that Simmons missed six of eight attempts in the first half.
With a shade under five minutes left in the first half, Young of all people fouled Simmons with the Sixers leading 51-31.
Simmons made one of two free throws, then fouled Young in transition at the other end. Young made one of two.
And so it went, Huerter next to foul Simmons, who missed both shots and Huerter again contributing a clear path foul of Simmons on the fast break. By halftime Huerter and Bogdanovic had three fouls each, Young a couple and Hawks coach Nate McMillan a headache for following the strategy Scott Brooks used on Simmons in the first round of the postseason. Uh, the Wizards fired Brooks Wednesday.
In the last minute of the first half the Hawks gave Simmons a fast-break layup because four of the five players on the floor had multiple fouls.
The Sixers led 62-40 at the intermission, the Hawks unable to do much of anything right, including make their open shots. The Hawks played with one center, two centers and three centers, all to no avail against Embiid.
While Embiid was scoring 17 points from all angles in the first quarter, making all nine of his shots, Simmons was an economical 1-for-1 from the field. He dunked on a pass from Thybulle.
That was the formula for constructing a 38-24 lead entering the second quarter.
Young and the Hawks just kept chipping away, Rivers strategically resting Simmons and Embiid. Young erupted for 39 points and seven assists.
Simmons made 61.3 percent of his free throws in the regular season. In these playoffs he was 10 of 28 (35.7 percent) in the first round and 8 of 25 (.320) entering Game 5 with the Hawks.
If Simmons had made 50 percent of his free throws the game would have gone into overtime. If he had made 61.3 percent of them the Sixers would have won by five points.
“I would say probably in the first half it definitely helped us,” Rivers said of the hack-a-Ben scheme. “We actually increased the lead when they were doing it. And in the beginning of the third quarter, (Bogdan) Bogdonavic and (Kevin) Huerter had four or five fouls. So, in a lot of ways it really helped us.”