Brooklyn head coach Kenny Atkinson said before this game that he was expecting a “haymaker” from the Sixers, a team he believed was “too good and too well-coached” to fall apart after one playoff loss.

If the Sixers took a left hook on Saturday afternoon, they came back with a massive overhand right on Monday night, throwing that haymaker in the form of a 21-2 run to open the second half, leading to an outrageous 51-point third quarter and 22-point win. They pulled level with the Nets at one game apiece as the series shifts to Brooklyn, which contains more hipsters per capita than Kensington and East Passyunk combined. Philly is back in this thing with 48 hours of rest before a short trip up the highway to the Barclays Center, and maybe the best part about the blowout is that Joel Embiid only had to play 21 minutes last night before taking a seat on the bench.

Now let me be honest with you –

I’m not big on fans leaving early during any win, especially when the playoffs begin. The crowd, which was excellent last night, starting filing out with more than seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter as both teams pulled their starters and let the reserves do mop up duty.

The early exit encapsulated a bizarre scene overall, a quirky example of just how quickly this city went from tight-sphincter worrying to 100% blowout boredom, which is hilarious to me considering how itchy and negative everything was during the two full days that followed the game one loss. It’s goofy how big of a difference one good performance can make in the mental health department, how much it changes the tone on sports radio and social media, where knee-jerk reaction is king.

And what a performance we got. The energy and purpose was ten times what we saw on Saturday, just a sense of urgency that was not there in game one. The guys who had bad games had good games, Joel Embiid was able to rest in the fourth quarter, and Brett Brown made a couple of key lineup adjustments that really helped turned this thing around, so we’ll start there, after the jump:

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That was one of the worst Philadelphia playoff performances I’ve ever witnessed, and I watched Andy Reid’s Eagles back in the day. I watched Peter Nowak’s Union and countless Phillies and Flyers duds.

You’re not gonna win many games when you shoot 40.7% from the floor, 12% from three (3-25), and 69% from the foul line (29-42). And I think the further disappointment is that they did fine in most auxiliary areas. They pulled down 16 offensive rebounds and only turned the ball over 13 times. They shot 16 more free throws than the Nets and only two fewer field goals. They got Jarrett Allen in foul trouble and forced Brooklyn to play Ed Davis for 25 minutes and Jared Dudley for 28 minutes, well above their season averages.

They opened with some solid pick and roll defense, as D’Angelo Russell put up a number of low-percentage mid-range looks en route to 0-5 start. Then Brooklyn went on a big run to end the 1st quarter and they Sixers just couldn’t pull it together from there. They got cooked by the Nets’ guards in space and the offense looked completely discombobulated. JJ Redick fouled out. Tobias Harris only took seven shots. I’m honestly stunned that this game was as close at it was, because it felt like the Sixers were just getting run off the court at times.

Some thoughts:

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That’s what Howard Eskin would say.

The King would tell all of you panicky Sixer fans to get a dog, and I see a lot of y’all out there. I see a lot of y’all on social media calling for the first round upset, saying the Sixers can’t defend guards, saying they can’t defend a pick and roll, and saying that Brett Brown can’t coach.

And listen, I get all of that, so allow me to address it:

The Nets are a tricky matchup. They have good back court players. Their guards get hot and they will run about 4,000 spread pick and rolls per game. They beat the Sixers twice this season and Philly needed a buzzer-beater to escape with a late win in New York City. The second win came at the Wells Fargo Center while the Nets were on the 7th game of a ridiculous seven-game road trip. You look at the regular season and even go back to 2017 and understand that this is a squad that has given Philly some fits.

But people said the same thing last year. “Miami will be a tough out!” The Sixers and Heat split the season series and then Philly went out and won 4-1 in the playoffs. Joel Embiid didn’t even play in two of those games. Miami was physical, sure, and they made some shots, but the Sixers just had too much talent, and it showed.

So when I look at this matchup on the surface, I only see 2-3 areas where Brooklyn has the edge. Here’s how I’d analyze that:

• overall talent level: Sixers
• home court advantage: Sixers
• playoff experience: Sixers
• coaching: push
• bench/depth: Nets
• size: Sixers
• weight of expectations: this benefits the Nets (there’s exponentially more pressure on Philly)
• three-point shooting: Sixers rank 8th, Nets 14th
• field-goal shooting: Sixers rank 8th, Nets 25th
• effective field goal %: Sixers 8th, Nets 18th
• offensive rebounding: Nets rank 10th, Sixers 11th
• defensive rating: it’s the same exact number, 108.9
• offensive rating: Sixers 8th, Nets 19th
• net rating: Sixers 11th, Nets 15th
• turnover percentage: Sixers 24th, Nets 25th

Across the board, the Sixers win in pretty much every statistical category. But to expand on a couple of those bullet points, after the jump:

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