Alright, I’m back. Spent the week getting adjusted to life with a newborn, and as such, I’m writing this at five in the morning on a Sunday as my daughter poops in her diaper.
That’s what the Sixers put in last night – a poopy performance, but not something that can’t be fixed. You can change the diaper, wash your hands, get some sleep, then come back on Monday night and give it another shot.
In a way, that game felt similar to game one against Brooklyn, with the Philly offense struggling to create good looks while the opponent seemed to be hitting every single shot they took. Toronto runs were often book-ended with a bad Sixers turnover or poor mental decision, and while Brett Brown’s team did string together some nice possessions themselves, it just felt like they had to work infinitely harder for everything they got.
That’s really the game in a nutshell. Toronto’s starting unit outplayed the Sixers’ starting unit. Tobias Harris, Jimmy Butler, and Joel Embiid combined to shoot 15-47 from the floor (31.9%) while Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam went 28-38 (73.6%).
I guess the natural thing is to sit here and say, “surely those two can’t play like that again… right?”
Probably.
Kawhi hit 16 of 23 shots last night (69.6%) and put up these shooting marks in the Orlando series:
His round one average was 57%, so he’ll drop off from super elite status to just really damn good… I think.
Siakam shot 53% in round one and I highly doubt he shoots 80% again in this series, but everything for those two guys was going down last night. Look at this combined Kawhi/Siakam shooting chart on the left, compared to Joel, Tobias, and Jimmy:
That pretty much tells the story.
I could end the article right there, but then it wouldn’t be much of an article would it?
More after the jump:
I don’t think the Sixers’ defense was that poor last night. I really don’t. Kawhi hit some tough shots, some Michael Jordan-looking fadeaways and whatnot. Siakam was getting everything to fall within eight feet of the rim. There was a point in the second quarter where they had all but four Toronto points while their teammates were shooting 2-8.
But one thing Toronto did well – on top of that – is that they just made smart offensive reads and showed good intuition in pushing the pace when necessary and slowing it down in the half court otherwise.
To illustrate the latter point, I really liked this sequence from Kawhi and Danny Green:
Kawhi is just looking to get JJ Redick in a switch via pick and roll. Redick hedges the first attempt, then recovers, so Kawhi simply just lets Danny Green come back and screen again. When Redick hedges the second time, he shuffles to his left, takes the contact, and simply steps into the three-pointer instead.
That’s savvy, veteran stuff right there.
Here’s the exact same sequence in the second half, where Redick again hedges and Kawhi plays Green instead of recycling the screen:
Kawhi dumps it to Green, Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid collapse, and Toronto gets Siakam wide open for the kick out corner three.
It’s just really smart, fundamental basketball. The Raptors don’t do anything super fancy, they just play a high-IQ game. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. They typically pick the right pass. There aren’t a lot of cracks to exploit in this team and I really do enjoy watching them play.
The Sixers, on the other hand, just seemed to have difficulty getting decent looks throughout the night. These two Embiid possessions jumped out to me:
Difficult, off-balance stuff there. Great Toronto defense.
Joel was defended by Marc Gasol on 29 possessions last night, shooting 1-8 from the floor and scoring just 3 of his 16 points. He was guarded by Serge Ibaka on 26 occasions, hitting 4-9 and snagging 13 points.
You see the size difference the Sixers do have against Toronto, and in occasions where Ibaka is on the floor as the backup center, there’s enough beef to get into the paint and score. The Raptors are long and disruptive on the perimeter, and while it’s going to be harder to get the dribble hand-off game going, Harris, Embiid, and Ben Simmons should be able to find some luck down low. Ben had a good game, shooting 6-7 against Kawhi and Siakam combined. Need more of that in game two from him.
Turnovers were an issue in game one, but they didn’t kill the Sixers. They were right around their season average at 16 turnovers but allowed just 22 points off those cough ups. Toronto turned it over 10 times for 15 Sixer points, so Philly actually was punished at a lesser ratio because they were better about getting back, specifically in the 1st half.
The Sixers scored 14 second chance points on the strength of 13 offensive rebounds and actually out-shot Toronto 89-79. That number looks incredibly funky simply because the Raptors couldn’t miss last night. Captain Obvious would say that you can’t get offensive rebounds if you don’t miss your shots in the first place.
40 points in the paint was disappointing for a Sixers team that was scoring 60+ in some of the Brooklyn games. Embiid only scored 8 PITP, which is incredibly low for him. Simmons had 14 to lead the team.
They also lost the battle in fast break points, 21-13, which is a letdown considering how good Philly has been in this department all year long. Toronto I thought did a great job of knowing when to push and when to just work into their half court offense.
Contested field goals (CFG) really helps tell the story as well, and maybe I should have put this in the first section, but here’s the data:
Not only did the Raptors do a better job at limiting the Sixers in this department, they themselves shot 62% on contested efforts. That’s a phenomenal number and something you simply have to give them credit for. You also have to be unsatisfied with a -17 margin in total contests. Joel Embiid was 2-12 on contested field goals last night, which is 16.7%. He’s gotta find his dominating self on Monday.
I read a lot of complaints about Furkan Korkmaz being in the game last night, but it’s not a huge deal to me.
First, if Mike Scott is healthy, Furkan doesn’t play.
Second, Brett Brown doesn’t have any great options beyond Scott and James Ennis off the bench. Every player after those two has significant liabilities that are going to hurt you in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
I saw a lot of people clamoring for Zhaire Smith, and maybe he’s an improvement over Furkan. I have no idea. But I’m flabbergasted that so many people are putting an immense amount of trust in a rookie who has played six career NBA games and appeared for one total minute in the Brooklyn series. I think it’s certainly fair to point out that Zhaire will be here next season and has a future with the team while Furkan’s option wasn’t even picked up, so that’s justification as to playing the former over the latter. But in a vacuum, I can’t definitively say whether one dude is better than the other right now, because I haven’t seen enough of Zhaire to know what he really is.
Listen, playoff basketball is about your stars beating the other team’s stars. That’s what happened on Saturday night. Toronto’s best players were better than Philly’s best players. The Raptors bench scored a whopping ten points and Ibaka was a -9, so this game was not won or lost because of what Brett Brown and Nick Nurse did with players 8-10 on the roster.
It is what it is.
Brett made good adjustments after the game one Brooklyn loss when he benched T.J. McConnell and Jonathon Simmons, so we’ll see what he can come up with here. You can’t bench everyone, so somebody with a weakness is gonna be out there. Boban has defensive liabilities, Jonah Bolden has not been good in the playoffs, Furkan has his issues, J. Simmons, etc.
Playoff benches are often like voting in a presidential election. These aren’t choices that you feel strongly about and oftentimes you just go with the candidate who has the fewest liabilities. It’s the “lesser of two evils” mindset.
Enjoy your Sunday. Big Game of Thrones episode tonight.