Sixers vs. Celtics tonight.

NBA playoffs.

In a normal year, Philadelphia would be juiced for this matchup, but it’s not a normal year. The teams are playing on a neutral court in Florida, in front of zero fans, while Ben Simmons remains sidelined due to a left knee cap dislocation. Joel Embiid got banged up in the games that ensued, and the Delaware Valley isn’t exactly buzzing with confidence regarding the head coach or general manager. With the Flyers soaking up a lot of the spotlight right now, the Sixers are sort of floating into this critical 3/6 matchup, just under the radar scanners.

The game will be won or lost defending the perimeter, which we discussed on Friday, and that’s where Simmons will be missed the most. They’ll also miss his transition offense, but the Celtics have done well stifling Ben in the half court over the years, so his absence on that end actually might make things a little bit more staightforward for Joel Embiid.

But to the first point there, Brett Brown suggested Sunday afternoon that he’d consider putting rookie Matisse Thybulle into the starting lineup for defensive purposes. Here’s what he said when asked about defending Jayson Tatum:


“It gets deeper when you talk about not having Glenn Robinson III (oblique injury). It really does. The challenge, when you look at all of those gifted wing scorers, Jayson Tatum, but the ones we all know, (not having Ben and GRIII) is punishing. What it means is that you go to other obvious players. You’re not going to have Matisse and J Rich play 48 minutes. It bleeds into a lot of other things that are the reason you have a team. The group effort, the understanding of tendencies, the schematic end of game plans, it has to be precise. You don’t have the luxury or wiggle room for a misstep or mistake, the lack of a proper read. I see it that simply. It’s difficult but in relation to who gets the lion’s share of Ben or Glenn’s responsibility, after J Rich and Matisse, it’s really based on a few things that I probably won’t get into now.”

Yeah, I mean look, he’s not going to reveal the matchups or game plan, but they’re probably going to have to do this by committee.

The interesting quote came on a follow up in which Brown was asked about starting Thybulle:

“We’re talking a lot about doing different things. It is being considered.”

…

“Matisse will have a significant role defensively in the series.”

Starting Thybulle is interesting, but the risk there is that he’s overzealous and collects a couple of cheap and/or early fouls. Jayson Tatum does have a tendency to be inconsistent at times, so you might be okay starting Tobias Harris on him and seeing which Tatum shows up.

In that case the matchups would look like this:

  • Shake Milton —> Kemba Walker or Jaylen Brown
  • Josh Richardson —> Kemba Walker or Jaylen Brown
  • Tobias Harris —> Jayson Tatum
  • Al Horford —> Gordon Hayward
  • Joel Embiid —> Daniel Theis

Something like that. It’s not ideal without Simmons, but Thybulle can guard spots 1-3 off the bench, and he’s gonna see some time against Marcus Smart as well. They’ll need his defense, but starting a playoff series against the Celtics is a big ask for a rookie.

Here’s what Matisse said about all of it:

“For me, it’s exciting. I think that means that I’ve earned a certain level of trust from my teammates and the coaching staff. As everyone hyped up the playoffs if they trust me enough in the playoffs to do my job and my role and what I’ve been trying to prove for this whole season is exciting because I think my work’s paid off and it’s time to showcase everything that we’ve been preparing for.”

As you know, the Sixers won the regular season series against the Celtics 3-1, and I did a quick look at the box scores from those games and found the following Thybulle-on-Tatum numbers:

  • 2-6 shooting
  • four individual points
  • 3:10 of matchup time

The sample is good, but it’s very small for four games. Simmons guarded Tatum for a large portion of time, and when Thybulle was in these games, he spent the most time on Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker, and Marcus Smart.

Would you start Thybulle or bring him off the bench? We’ll see what Brett Brown does at 6:30 p.m.