Another comprehensive victory for your team, your town, your Philadelphia 76ers, who held serve on home court and now go to Canada up two games to nil in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

When I say they held serve, they did so in emphatic fashion. It was like watching John Isner dial up ace after ace while the opponent just stood there watching the ball go by. Or, if I can use another tennis analogy, it was like Patrick Rafter running right up to the net and volleying for the point in just a couple of seconds, which is really what the Sixers did in running out to a second-quarter lead and squashing every Toronto attempt at a run.

The Sixers turned in another fantastic shooting night, hitting 52.2% of their field goals and draining 14 of 30 from deep (46.7%). On the flip side, Fred VanVleet couldn’t throw the ball into the Schuylkill River while kayaking on the water’s surface, finishing 7-23 overall while Toronto managed 42.7% from the floor. Throw in manageable turnover and rebound numbers and the Sixers did more than enough to dispatch a Raptors team playing without Scottie Barnes and not having Gary Trent Jr at full health.

“I think that the first game it was more like (a featherweight fight),” Doc Rivers said afterward. “Today was more like heavyweight. It was hitting each other. But, it’s the playoffs. And you should expect it. You’ve got to play through it because of the physicality. It’s tough to officiate every call. So, there are going to be some where you get hit and are just going to have to play through it. I thought our guys were better at that (Monday). There were times where I thought a couple of guys got fouled. Instead of complaining, they got back on defense and kept playing. That’s going to be throughout the playoffs, and we have to keep doing that.”

Speaking of complaining..

There hasn’t been a major storyline in this series so far. You can talk about Barnes being out, or Matisse Thybulle being unable to travel to Canada, but it’s probably foul calls and how the games are being reffed, if we’re picking one stand-out topic.

To that end, we got this exchange at the end of Game 2:

When asked about this by reporters, Embiid said that he respectfully told Nurse to stop bitching about foul calls. That was a thing after Game 1 and before Game 2, Nurse going public in talking about the way Embiid (and James Harden) were being officiated.

Honestly though, there’s been some really weak stuff going in both directions this series, and even though the total foul numbers are skewed towards Philly, the occasional head scratcher pops up, like this:

If that’s a foul, then I’m Ringo Starr on the drums.

I thought the best foul quote of the night didn’t come from Nurse or Embiid actually, but from VanVleet, who said this:

“Its tough. What did they shoot? 26 for 30 from the line? So him and James [Harden] obviously are two of the best at it. Their team is top of the league in free-throw shooting, so we are going to have to find a way to get creative in different ways. I thought we did a pretty good job, but at a certain point we are going to have to stop arguing with the refs and find another solution because they are not budging. I liked our intensity and our physicality and we showed more bodies and we seemed to be on the right spots on some of the doubles and things like that. We will have to find ways to get our hands out of there as he is searching for them and maybe clean up the boards a little bit, but yeah he dominated tonight. We didn’t do as good of a job as we did in previous games so again looking at the tape, I think we have a day in between so we will see what we can get better at.”

I like that answer because it’s an admission that you can’t change the refs. You’re going to have to work within the parameters displayed. Embiid and Harden search for fouls and they are excellent at drawing those fouls, so if Toronto wants to have success, they need to accept that and work around it. Nurse was taking more of a one-way street, trying to square peg/round hole bitch his way to equality here, and it’s not coming. FVV understands that.

Keeping Tyrese Maxey going

Another strong Maxey game. 8-11 from the floor, 22 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, and this highlight reel play:

I wanted to share this specifically because it’s another example of what we talked about Monday in the Xs and Os column. This “12” pick and roll is a two-guard action that forces a switch, so in this case Harden pulls Malachi Flynn and Maxey gets OG Anunoby. Harden can then iso Flynn and drive, or swing the ball hard to the second side, and when he does that Maxey is so adept at catching, planting, and putting bigger defenders off balance.

“It’s tough (for them to defend),” Maxey said. “You’ve got two guards. Either I’m coming off or he (Harden) is coming off. You’ve got to make a decision. Do you want to switch? Most of the time they don’t want to get off James’ body and give him any space. If they don’t, I’m getting downhill. If they switch, then he has a matchup or I have a matchup. We just try to get downhill and make plays for ourselves and make plays for others as well.”

“They’ve just been doing a great job of playing with pace and looking for matchups,” Embiid added of the Harden/Maxey duo. “Favorable matchups. To attack. Just playing the game with each other. Whether it’s Tyrese attacking or James going one-on-one with a favorable matchup and finding guys that way, too. I think it’s been great. That’s what we all need all series and for the future, too.”

rotations, injuries, etc

Couple of notes here:

  1. with Barnes out, Nurse started Precious Achiuwa instead
  2. Gary Trent was doubtful before the game, but cleared to play, and then left about halfway through.. he averages 18 a game so his lack of presence is noticeable
  3. Flynn didn’t play until Game 1 garbage time, but Nurse inserted him in Game 2 for extra ball handling
  4. nine-man rotation again for Doc, bringing Georges Niang, Thybulle, Shake Milton, and Paul Reed off the bench

Reed was a +8 on the evening. Plus/minus is sometimes a bogus stat, but in this case they are winning the non-Embiid minutes and Reed is doing a nice job of being mobile on defense, holding down the fort, and keeping things steady while Joel rests. Embiid has played 37 minutes in each game of this series, which is totally ideal.

Mask nonsense

The City of Philadelphia re-instituted the indoor mask mandate recently, and it went into effect for this game.

Alas:

This is dumb and always has been dumb. They stopped enforcing mask wearing at the arena a long time ago, and so in the crowd shots last night the only mask wearing was done by people who were working. Ushers, media, photographers, statistics and scoreboard folks, etc. Regardless of your stance on masks, I think we can all agree that the mandates are useless if they aren’t going to be enforced.

Other notes:

  • Gus Johnson is a national treasure. You could tell he really loved saying “SIAKAM” last night.
  • Dawn Staley rang the bell. Nice get.
  • Danny Green dunking? That was not expected, but cool to see. Nice cherry on top there.
  • 22 fast break points and only 10 for Toronto. Another good transition game for the Sixers, who weren’t great in that department during the regular season. If they keep making shots, they can get back and get set on defense and deny those run out opportunities. On the other end, if they push the pace and keep moving the ball, they’ll find opportunities in the open floor.
  • 14 turnovers in this game, obviously up from Game 1, but despite being -5 in total turnovers there was only a one-point difference in points scored off turnovers, so they did a nice job of mitigating further damage from those mistakes.