As We (Justifiably) Hammer Ben Simmons, Remember These Five Other Things About the Sixers' Playoff Failure
We here at Crossing Broad collectively believe that Ben Simmons deserves the most blame for the Sixers’ disastrous second-round playoff exit. We’re talking about a max player who went entirely AWOL on offense, then passed up a dunk opportunity in the dying moments of Game 7 in what turned out to be one of the worst losses in franchise history.
He took the brunt of the blame for the failure, and that’s probably reasonable. You simply cannot have a 30 million dollar point guard who is unable and/or unwilling to be a factor in the slowed-down, half court possessions that define crunch time playoff basketball. Ben Simmons defenders will jump through hoops to point out all of the things he does well, and we’ve tried to highlight those things on this website while being fair, but at the end of the day the Sixers are five years in with a guy whose offensive game is the same as it was in 2017.
Simmons is going to get absolutely destroyed this week (as if he wasn’t already). But we’re always trying to keep things in perspective here, and the truth is that there’s a lot of blame to go around for that Game 7 loss and failed Sixers season. Here are five things to consider when discussing the Sixers with your friends, or on social media, or at the water cooler as we kick off this new season:
1) Matisse Thybulle’s foul
The defining moment of Game 7 was not Simmons passing up on the dunk, which was more of a symbolic sequence that encapsulated the years-long Ben argument. It was when Matisse Thybulle fouled Kevin Huerter with 54 seconds on the clock in a game the Sixers were losing by a single point. Thybulle spoke about it recently:
“He was thrown under the bus.. I lost us the game, which lost us the series & no one really spoke about it. They wanted to talk about passing up the dunk & passing it to me more than my foul."
Matisse Thybulle on Ben Simmons, Sixers
(via @OldManAndThree)pic.twitter.com/dpfM2gaHDw
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) September 24, 2021
The reason Thybulle didn’t receive as much hate is obvious. He was a second-year guy making a little over $2.5 million. Ben is a #1 overall draft pick and max contract player who won’t shoot the ball, and hasn’t improved his offensive game in any meaningful way over the years. He was already a lightning rod for discussion coming into the series, so naturally the discourse centered around him after the playoff exit.
2) Joel Embiid’s rough moments at inopportune times
It’s hard to sit here and lob any criticism at Joel Embiid, who was the MVP runner-up and played on a torn meniscus in the playoffs. He turned in one of the best individual seasons in Philadelphia sports history.
But there were some second-half moments in the Hawks series he would have loved to have back. After the Thybulle foul, with the Sixers now down four, he turned the ball over on the ensuing offensive possession. Danilo Gallinari scored to give the Hawks a six-point lead with 41 seconds on the clock. Embiid turned the ball over eight times in Game 6 and eight times in Game 7.
And in the second half of Game 4, Joel shot 0-12 from the floor, to finish 4-20 on the evening. The Sixers lost that game, a game that would have put them up 3-1 in the series and all but sealed their entry into the Eastern Conference Finals.
3) Not enough from Tobias Harris
Tobias Harris shot 8-24 in Game 7 and 2-11 in Game 5. Don’t forget, he’s a max player, too. He actually made more money than Joel Embiid AND Ben Simmons last year, but didn’t get as much criticism for his let downs in the series. Harris was far from the biggest issue out there, but a couple of more timely baskets from him in those two games and we might be telling a different story entirely.
4) Doc’s 10-man rotation and bench management
Doc Rivers ran a 10-man rotation in the Game 7 loss, handing out these minutes:
- Harris: 45 minutes
- Embiid: 41 minutes
- Simmons: 36 minutes
- Seth Curry: 31 minutes
- Furkan Korkmaz: 18 minutes (starting in place of the injured Danny Green)
- George Hill: 22 minutes
- Thybulle: 21 minutes
- Tyrese Maxey: 14 minutes
- Shake Milton: 5 minutes
- Dwight Howard: 7 minutes
For context, Brett Brown rolled seven in Toronto, which is usually the standard for a deciding playoff game. Seven or eight players, depending on the roster. Doc just never seemed to have a firm grasp of his playoff rotation and didn’t do enough to experiment with the bench during the regular season.
5) Needed reinforcements
Daryl Morey had a fantastic offseason, shipping off Al Horford and Josh Richardson and turning his team into a title contender. He gets very little blame for any of this.
But the George Hill move ended up being a miss, despite the trade looking good on paper. Here was a veteran guard who could shoot and defend, and he would be the 6th man come playoff time. A veteran two-way player coming off the bench. For whatever reason, maybe the thumb surgery, he just did not have it, and was released this summer.
The Sixers also needed a stretch big to help stagger their second unit a bit, but didn’t pull off that deadline move. Both Rivers and Morey talked about it after the season and noted that they should have got this move done, but instead got small very quickly and had to get creative at power forward when Tobias Harris came off the floor. To address that issue, they went out and signed Georges Niang in free agency.
Anyway, there’s a lot of blame to go around. Today is media day. Should be a doozy!