Nothing like a 7:30 p.m. game tipping off at 7:51, but hey, it was definitely worth the wait.

The Sixers ran out to a 13-point first quarter lead, stumbled in the second, and then used a bench explosion, of all things, to bury the Atlanta Hawks and claim Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

You can start in a million different places, but you have to go with Joel Embiid, who learned before the game that he finished second in the MVP voting to Denver’s Nikola Jokic. It wasn’t a surprise to anybody who followed the NBA this season, but the disappointment was channeled into a 40 point, 13 rebound effort on a night where the Sixers absolutely could not afford to go down 2-0 in the series.

“There’s only some things I can control,” Embiid said after the monstrous performance. “Obviously as a team we had a good year and I was a part of it. It’s disappointing because as a player you work hard for moments like this. But then again, it’s out of my control. Nothing I can do about it. I just have to come out every year and be ready and do my job. I’m focused on the playoffs and focused on winning the championship. I’ve said all season we’ve got a good chance, so I’m not worried about those awards. If and when I’m holding that trophy, everything else won’t matter.”

And of course, he scored his 40 on a torn meniscus, which was diagnosed after the Wizards series and sounded bad at the time. Here’s a seven-footer shooting 13-25 from the floor in this game, 40% from three, and continuing to play at an elite level in the postseason.

But the second biggest story on Action News is:

Shake shake shake

Shake Milton played one minute in Game 1, committed a turnover, and then promptly went over and sat on the bench.

After the Sixers’ backups were outscored 32-0 in the first half of Game 2, Doc Rivers turned to Milton for second-half offense, and he responded in a big way, hitting a couple of three-pointers that sparked a 14-0 run and pushed his team ahead for good.

He finished with 14 points in 14 minutes, shot 5-8 from the floor, and was a team-high +15 on the evening.

“I talked to Shake (Tuesday) and said ‘this is a long run man, if we do this right, then everyone is going to get a shot, stay ready,'” Doc Rivers said. “I give Shake credit; and the same thing happened to Furk (Furkan Korkmaz) when we took him out of the rotation. Shake came back (Monday) night and played one-on-one at 10 o’clock at night. He shot extra. He prepared himself and believed he would get another shot, and he got it. He gave us a huge lift, and I’m very happy for him personally.”

You have to be happy for a guy who came into the season with some Sixth Man of the Year chatter, started relatively well, and then completely fell off the map. And it’s a huge boon for the Sixers if he can keep this form, because they had absolutely nothing offensively coming from the bench in the first half, and during portions of the Wizards series. When you look at Atlanta’s shooting ability in the second unit, and realize that the Sixers don’t have that in Matisse Thybulle and George Hill and Furkan Korkmaz, the latter who struggled big time, you come to understand just how important a Shake redux could be.

Trae Young and adjustments

As expected, Rivers had Ben Simmons guard Trae Young in Game 2 and switched Danny Green over to Bogdan Bogdanovic. They used Tobias Harris to switch on some of those early drag plays, and it made a big difference. Young finished with 21 points on 16 shots and was 1-7 from the floor.

“I thought it was good,” said Rivers of the defense on Young. “I thought the switching was good. We took them out of their ’77’ and double drag play for the most part. He’ll be more aggressive next game. There’s no doubt about it. You could see his adjustment was to try to attack early in transition so we’ll have to adjust to that next game.”

The good thing about Simmons is that he only picked up two fouls, and was able to play his defensive game without some ticky-tack shit from Scott Foster and Tony Brothers. Doc talked at length earlier this week about the thought that Young picks up some cheap fouls, and was hoping the game would be called a certain way as the series progressed, and I asked him about that hoping he would take the bait, but he did not:

Crossing Broad: Did you feel like the game was officiated in a way that made that switch from Danny to Ben feasible?

Rivers: I’m not going to comment on that.

Crossing Broad: Do you think that Ben was able to defend the way he wanted to defend?

Rivers:  Yeah, I thought Ben played terrific defense and he did it without fouling.

Seems like a nothing quote, but it was a big topic coming into this game, and the refs stayed quiet enough to let Simmons do his thing. He wasn’t ultra-aggressive in the way we saw during the 3rd quarter of Game 1, but he did a nice job containing Young and not putting the decision making in the hands of the officials.

The only egregious call I remember off-hand was very similar to Game 1, with Thybulle getting his hands up and Young driving the slot and pushing off, but the whistle going against Matisse. Luckily for the Sixers, those types of calls were not common and didn’t influence the game too much.

Here’s how the matchup data played out:

Young shot 4-11 when guarded by Simmons and Thybulle. That’s good, you’ll take that any day of the week. And Bogdanovic was 3-11 against Green, so the adjustment worked out for the Sixers.

And the other thing worth noting is that the Sixers do have some smart off-ball guys. Ben’s length is fantastic when he’s not the on-ball defender, but on plays like this they were preventing those extra passes that Atlanta killed Philly with in Game 1:

All bench? Nope

Some subbing adjustments for Doc in this one:

  • Thybulle was first off the bench at the 6:00 mark in the first quarter
  • Embiid played nearly 11 first half minutes
  • he got Tyrese Maxey, George Hill, and Dwight Howard in at the end of the first

I saw some people asking on Twitter why Tobias Harris came out after eight minutes despite shooting 8-9 from the field and scoring 16 first quarter points. The reason is that they needed to stagger him into the second unit in order to avoid having to go all-bench for the second-straight game.

As such, they opened the second with a lineup that looked like this:

  1. Tyrese Maxey
  2. George Hill
  3. Furkan Korkmaz
  4. Tobias Harris
  5. Dwight Howard

Unfortunately, the results were similar to the all-bench unit of Sunday afternoon. This group missed a couple of shots and gave up a quick 5-0 run and Rivers called a timeout when Atlanta cut the lead down to eight, and took Maxey out for Simmons. And it’s not like that was a stout Hawks defensive group out there. We’re talking Danilo Gallinari and Lou Williams on the floor.

Doc might have to cut this rotation down to nine, and it probably should be there already. With Shake Milton showing up big time in Game 2, there’s no reason to have Korkmaz on the floor at all. The only justifiable bench options right now are Thybulle, Milton, Hill, and Howard, and if you can spot Maxey a few minutes in a game you’re winning, then maybe that’s fine.

But the big takeaway is that Rivers got away from the all bench group and staggered starters into the second unit. We can start looking ahead to some Shake Milton lineups in Game 3 and go back over the regular season and see how he performed with different groupings.

Traveling?

Foster and Brothers weren’t total disasters last night, but what the hell happened here? –

https://twitter.com/Corey_Deshawn/status/1402436947990171651?s=20

If you bobble the ball, or it’s touched and deflected, then you can re-gather and keep possession. But there was zero on-ball contact from Embiid and this is pretty clearly a traveling violation. The near-side ref should have seen this.

Ref, you suck! 

Awful announcing

TNT had somebody named Brian Anderson doing play-by-play for this one.

Poor guy said that Sixers fans were chanting “Let’s Go Process” in the second-half, which was brutal. If a national guy isn’t familiar with local customs, that’s understandable, but “Trust the Process” has been a thing for years now and you’d expect him to know that.

The broadcast team was also talking about the Wendy’s Frosty Freezeout and the guy said something like, “yeah if two free throws are missed they get a free smoothie from a fast food restaurant,” or something along those lines. This is a head-scratcher, because it’s one thing if somebody behind the scenes said ‘hey don’t mention Wendy’s because Burger King is a sponsor.’ It’s another thing if the guy is allowed to name the brand and just flubs it entirely. Kevin Harlan has specifically mentioned the Wendy’s promotion on national broadcasts in the past, so I don’t know what happened with this one, but man it was weird.

Other notes:

  • If the game is scheduled to start at 7:30, then start the damn game at 7:30. People got wives and kids and jobs. We don’t need a 20-minute Jokic interview. Outrageous!
  • Dr. J rang the bell.
  • George Hill has not looked like himself since he had that thumb surgery, but two steals, a block, and a +6 alongside those Shake minutes might help him get back revved up.
  • As much as Brothers and Foster stink, the double techs on the Embiid/Gallinari incident was probably the right way to go. Gallo started the whole thing, but Embiid can’t retaliate. Gotta keep your emotions under control.
  • Seth Curry with another fantastic game. 21 points, 5-6 from three.
  • We got Hack-a-Ben with the Hawks down 17 and 3:19 on the clock in the fourth quarter. He missed both free throws. Doc took Simmons off the floor, then put him back on, a strategy that he used after mocking the media for talking about last week. Different scenario though, and we’ll touch on this in a separate post.
  • I still think they can attack Trae Young on the offensive side of the floor. They’re just sticking him on Danny Green, who isn’t a shot creator, but if they wanted to, they could hunt him a bit more and throw some off-ball pindowns and screens at him, get him moving and working a bit.