We’re in a weird position right now with the Sixers, because the team stinks so much that people have completely checked out and don’t seem interested in reading any stories until somebody is fired or traded.

So let’s stay away from words here and pull some numbers instead, some data that illustrates how poorly they’ve performed in consecutive losses to dig themselves 0-2 series hole.

Behold:

  1. Volume: the Celtics have taken 17 more field goal attempts in this series. They were +10 in game one and +7 in game two. This is a number that the Sixers dominated in the regular season, so it’s disappointing to see them get absolutely handled in this area.
  2. Turnovers:  27 total compared to 13 for Boston. That’s a -14 number. Brutal.
  3. Point off turnovers: They’re getting killed here, obviously. Boston has 33 points off Sixer turnovers and Philly only has 12, which is dead last among the 16 postseason teams. They’re struggling to turn their defense into offense.
  4. Fast break points: Outscored 34 to 9 in this department, which goes hand in hand with turnovers. Boston is currently #1 in this postseason statistic due to the Sixers’ lack of ball security and transitional defense.
  5. Steals + blocks: Only 13 combined. This puts them above only the Thunder.
  6. Rebounding: They’ve given up 26 offensive boards in this series. Bob Huggins is smiling at the Celtics’ performance here.
  7. Second-chance points: Outscored 24-20 in this area. A team with Philadelphia’s size should be able to grab more weakside offensive rebounds and get more putbacks to fall, but they haven’t had success there.
  8. Points: 101 PPG over the first two playoff games ranks 14th out of 16 teams.
  9. Three point shooting: 29.2% is 15th of out 16 playoff teams.
  10. Second quarters: They’re being outscored 68 to 47 in the second period, which has been an issue for them going back a few years now.
  11. Tobias Harris: 10 for 29 in this series (34.4%). He has 28 points on 29 shots.
  12. Al Horford: 10 points on 10 shots. If you combine Horford and Harris together, that’s a lot of money for 38 points on 39 shots.
  13. Defensive rating: 126.1 is 15th out of 16 teams and perhaps the most disappointing statistic in this list. Yes, Ben Simmons is out, but they should be better than this.
  14. Offensive rating: 108.0, which is good for 9th. That’s middle of the pack, and not fantastic, but in the seeding games they were scoring enough points to suggest that fixing the defense would make them at least competitive in round one.
  15. PACE: 93.75 in this series, which is the second slowest of the eight first round matchups. The Sixers were around 99 in the regular season and +100 in the past two years with Ben Simmons running point.
  16. Jayson Tatum: 10-17 from three this series (58.8%). Insanity.
  17. Free throw shooting: Boston’s grouping of Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and Kemba Walker are 28-31 in this series (90.3%).
  18. Furkan Korkmaz: 0-3 in just about 23 minutes played in this series
  19. Mike Scott: has only played about 7 minutes total. Last year he averaged 19 MPG over 10 games.
  20. Finally, I’ll give you a slightly more advanced number of 1.13 points per possession on Boston pick and rolls via the ball handler. Only Utah and Portland guards are showing better efficiency on pick and roll looks, with Tatum in particular killing the Sixers.

Everything is fine! Game three tonight at 6:30 p.m. Can’t wait.