That could not have gone any better.

The Sixers came out prepared on Saturday night, played a clean game, and fought off every Toronto push for a comprehensive 20-point victory in game one of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Let’s reiterate that prior word, “comprehensive.” They really performed well in multiple auxiliary categories, some of which are not strengths. They finished with 10 offensive rebounds, only three turnovers, and 29 fast break points. The pace was steady and the ball movement consistent throughout the game. Add it all up and you get a +2 field goal attempt margin and +11 free throw attempt margin on top of shooting 51.2% from the field and 50% from three.

“It was huge,” said Doc Rivers of the rebounding and transition defense. “We didn’t turn the ball over and that helped and obviously we just kept five in (to rebound), you know we really did, we talked about offensive rebounding too, you know and I thought we got a lot of hands on balls. we are really pushing Matisse (Thybulle) to do that more, just telling him that there’s usually no one around you and he’s the one guy on our team that has the speed to get back (on defense after trying to rebound on the offensive glass), so overall I just like how we played. I thought the beginning of the third we lost our pace and they made a run so we have to (keep that up). Pace is not sprinting and running, it’s just moving and not getting stagnant, I thought we did a good job of that.” 

And then in the luck department, the Sixers watched Scottie Barnes and Thad Young both leave the game injured, which nobody is cheering for. But the reality is that Toronto might have to go deeper down the depth chart already, with game two in less than 48 hours.


Tyrese Maxey

Just phenomenal from Sixers’ sophomore. 38 points on 14-21 shooting with a 5-8 mark from three. He pulled up from what felt like the logo at one point and just seemed locked in from the beginning.

This bears repeating:

It’s true. The Simmons hold out is what opened the door for Maxey in the starting five, and then the rest is history. He won’t win most improved player because of course his numbers are going to increase dramatically with increased minutes, but his game is incredibly well-rounded even in just year #2 as a pro.

Tobias Harris

26 points on 9-14 shooting. He was active early and a big reason they built up the lead. There was also a sequence where he finished strong at the rim, which is important, because Toronto doesn’t have the Gasol/Ibaka dueling tree combo of prior years, and Harris hasn’t traditionally been the best at meeting contact at the rim. He might find some good success driving in this series.

Immense game for Harris, who said this about the week of practice leading up to game one (via Kyle Neubeck on Twitter) –

“We had four days, two of the days we’re out there pretty much at the point where we wanted to kill each other. It was unbelievable. We was fighting in the group text after practice. But you know, it was competitive, and we needed that.”

Starting five and rotational stuff

I think Doc got it right starting Danny Green, even through Green had a rough game. You’re looking for continuity in the first unit, and with Thybulle ineligible to play in Canada, playing Green with Harris/Embiid/Maxey/Harden allows you to carry that grouping for the entirety of the series, without having to flip back and forth.

This is likely to change throughout the course of the series, but this is how the Sixers matched up to begin the game:

  • Maxey on Fred VanVleet
  • Green on Gary Trent Jr.
  • Harris on Pascal Siakam
  • James Harden on Barnes
  • Joel Embiid on OG Anunoby

Toronto isn’t a big team, so you see it’s going to be a different task for Embiid, who will be doing less banging and more finesse work against smaller guys away from the rim.

Doc rolled normal rotations in round 1 last year, and in this game we got first quarter Shake Milton, Thybulle, and Georges Niang. True to his word, however, Doc did use Paul Reed as the backup big against the smaller Raptors, bringing him on to begin the second quarter with Harden, Harris, Milton, and Thybulle. Reed picked up a cheap second foul while getting back on a Harden turnover, so I wouldn’t blame him too much for that, but the bottom line is that he did enough to hold court and the Sixers did just fine with their non-Embiid minutes.

James Harden

Looked much better, didn’t he? Harden hit two of his first three threes and was able to get to the rim when he wanted to. The one negative I saw was when he was awfully slow getting back after those two cough ups. One resulted in a foul for Reed and then the flagrant on Embiid.

But he really took over for that portion of the game when Toronto cut the lead to 11, scoring five straight and then throwing and super-sick bounce pass to Maxey for the reverse layup, which extended the lead to 18. He only shot 6 for 17 but had a good three-point shooting night and threw 14 assists.

“Just trying to make the right plays,” Harden said. “It’s about doing the little things and making the right plays and you’ve got a guy like Tyrese who got going, you gotta make sure he gets shots and try being aggressive and he was helping, he was knocking down shots and for him getting to the paint but I think it was a great game individually for guys and for the team. Things that we talked about this past week, rebounding the basketball, not turning the basketball over giving them opportunities and I think we did a good job of that tonight.”

Dopes and nightmares

Meek Mill rang the bell. Remember when he performed at the Patriots’ Super Bowl after party? Not a Philly guy! I know Bob Kraft helped him get out of jail or whatever, but still, if you’re a Philly guy you don’t perform at a Patriots’ anything, no matter what Bobby K did for you.

Also, what was with the hat? –

It says “QUEENS,” but there’s a New York Mets logo on the front and there was a Dodgers “LA” on the back. What the hell even is that? For game two they should have Drake ring the bell while his Meek Mill diss track plays over the loudspeakers. We going back to back.

A small media-related gripe here

Adam writes for the RTRS website. He went to every single home game this season and sat in the lower media section (on the court), but got bumped to the Flyers press box for this game. I disagree with that approach. I think people who showed up for the regular season should continue to get the best seats for the postseason. The folks who didn’t show up during the regular season can go sit upstairs in the nosebleed section instead. It shouldn’t be about how long you’ve been a media member, it should be how often you actually showed up during the year.

Fun with chyrons

Did you see this on the postgame show? Look at the graphic below Doc:

Been there, done that. It’s a plug-in oversight. When TV producers add graphics into a show, sometimes they have text fields that need to be filled out, but the fields have a pre-written template in there. So if you don’t blow out the template and write something else, you get stuff like this airing instead. It’s annoying. It happens.

Other notes:

  • Three early fouls on Chris Boucher was pretty big. Guy always seems to kill the Sixers. Fred VanVleet grabbing two was also significant in killing any early momentum he might have created.
  • Not sure about the flagrant on Barnes, but whatever. Maybe a partial make-up call for the earlier Embiid flagrant. NBA refs love to equal out flagrants and techs.
  • Gary Trent Jr. starting 0-7 was pretty helpful. Guy averages 18 points per game.
  • Good Doc Rivers game. That timeout to stop the 3rd quarter Raptors run was key. He got the rotation right. He had the Sixers ready to play.
  • You catch the ESPN broadcast refer to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as “Floyd Merriweather”? What the hell yo.
  • I didn’t even mention Joel Embiid, but didn’t have to. Nice to see the guys around him step up and assume some of the burden and give him an easy game for once.