Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
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With a 9-2 run, it was over. The Sixers and Heat had played essentially even over two quarters, but a quick spurt to start the third put Miami up eight and necessitated an early Doc Rivers timeout. It shouldn't have been the end that early, that quickly, but we've watched this team enough to know when they've been demoralized, and it was pretty clear that Miami striking first in the third also would mean that Miami would ultimately strike last. This Sixers team has been a lot of things over the course of the past seven months, but one thing they've pretty much never been is comeback kids; once they're down, they're usually not getting back up, at least not in any individual game. Sure enough, Miami's lead ballooned from there, and despite some well-intentioned bursts from Shake Milton and (eventually) Tyrese Maxey to at least attempt to shrink it back down to size, the die had been cast. The series had finally officially started, and the Sixers were going home in six.
It's never too early to point fingers to assign blame for what went wrong in this series, and there's no shortage of culprits to stick those long, boney fingers at: As always, everyone's to blame. Tobias Harris went frigid at the worst time. Georges Niang never heated up against Miami in the first place. Tyrese Maxey didn't do enough, James Harden didn't even seem to try. If Matisse Thybulle wasn't creating turnovers -- and for the most part these playoffs, he wasn't -- it wasn't totally clear what he was doing at all these playoffs, besides messing up the Sixers' spacing. Joel Embiid paid nearly immaculate tribute to his idol Kobe Bryant in Game Six by shooting 7 for 24. Doc Rivers had no notes about his own year-long performance, Sixers fans may disagree. Daryl Morey snuck out the back door and hoped you wouldn't remember he was the guy who put all of this together. Even though the final margin of victory was only nine points, it was the kind of series-ending loss that gets you to look at your Sixers neighbor and ask them, "Well, what have you done for us lately?""
No one gets to wash their hands of this Sixers performance -- except maybe Danny Green, who made three awesome plays in the early going to keep a surging-out-the-gate Miami within reach, before Joel Embiid's falling body (and my Twitter curse) knocked him out of the rest of the game and who even knows how long after that. Still, it was probably the least angry, frustrated or generally rueful I've been about an end to a Sixers season since Embiid first made this team postseason-relevant.
Of course, I had higher hopes for the series than this. I thought we could beat the Heat even without Embiid; I don't regret feeling that way (as a self-preservational tactic if nothing else), though Games 1 & 2 in this series made it clear such a result was perhaps farther than a wish away. Once Embiid was back, though, it felt obvious that we could hang with the Heat even with our big man still clearly compromised; after winning Games 3 & 4 in Philly with JoJo fairly convincingly, many Sixers fans believed we had taken decisive control of the series. I was less sure: The Heat had missed too many makeable looks and we were still playing too sloppy even when winning, while the Harden explosion at the end of Game Four seemed less like him turning a corner in his approach or physicality and more just him making a bunch of shots. Sure enough, game five convincingly swung the series back the other direction, though I remained confident the Sixers would respond in Game Six to force a tough-fought Game 7 showdown in Miami on Sunday. Sadly, that response Thursday night turned out to mostly be a "Nah, but y'all go ahead."
But if the Games Five and Six no-show was a little south of excusable for the Sixers, it was still well north of forgivable. Green's injury, potentially a career-ender, was a crusher. Niang, a relative rock for this team all season, just went limp, missing every shot we needed him to make. After a near-impossible rise over his second season, Maxey finally located a sophomore ceiling to bump his noggin on. Tobias was so absurdly locked in for the first eight games of the playoffs it was near-inevitable a regression to his usual level of effectiveness would hit. The team was catching cold cards and seeing its chip stack dwindle, and with the depth we'd sacrificed in the Harden trade -- which was never a team strength to begin with, and which Daryl and Doc simply didn't do nearly enough to build over the course of the season -- reinforcements were emphatically not on the way. (Though god bless Malik Benjamin Milton for at least attempting valiantly to materialize another Shake Game out of nothing in the second half of Game Six.)
And really, none of the above might have mattered if Embiid had been Embiid. Even 60-to-70% of Joel could've been enough in this series if his supporting cast had been up to the task, but with them flagging behind him, we really needed closer to 100 from our perennial MVP candidate to have a shot against this Heat team -- one that was just good enough to make us work for everything we got, and after an Arctic-level shooting run in the first two games in Philly, one with no interest in beating themselves. But it all just got to be too much for Jo: the torn thumb, the broken face, the concussion, the mask, the bad Harden vibes (?), the team-wide inability to throw an entry pass, the brilliance of his toxic old friend Jimmy Butler (and Jimothy's bottomless supply of sodium chloride for wound-pouring). He went down shooting -- yeah, yeah, unlike some people -- but he just didn't have his usual touch or command in this series, and every time a teammate miffed an easy look his presence and/or passing granted them, a little less of him made the trip back down to the other end of the floor. It just wasn't enough. Nothing was these last two games.
Honestly, more than anything, this hurts for us because of how much this probably hurts for Joel. Going home for the second round for the fourth time in five years -- dispatched this time by The One That Got Away, who apparently still carries a pretty sizeable torch for his old team and their 7'2" heart and soul -- and ending an MVP-caliber season getting booed on his home court for the second straight playoffs is yet another tough pill to swallow for a guy who's already been forced to take a lifetime's worth of jagged little vitamins. This one no doubt stings even worse knowing he wasn't able to throw his best punch, that he was forced to play from behind. He moved heaven and earth to get back to us in this series, and even as compromised as he was, Embiid vs. Miami is still 2-2; in a just world he'd at least get a couple more chances to take down his old frenemy. Instead, it's just another long offseason of If Onlys, which JoJo must be getting sicker of than Doc Rivers is of having anything about his obvious coaching brilliance and immaculate postseason record being called into question.
So yeah, speaking of Doc: He probably won't be here next year, as the rumor mill swirls around his potential decamping to L.A. and he treats every Sixers post-game availability more and more like a canceled comedian firing back at the media snowflakes not real enough to understand him. Other changes will have to be made: Two-way wing size and toughness is very badly needed, with Danny already aging and now out until question mark, and Matisse basically undoing any positives from the first three years of his career with his rancid last month's worth of on-and-off-court performance. Rebounding (along with general athleticism) will also have to be a priority; the Sixers didn't do enough on the boards at pretty much any point this postseason, and if you could crystallize this Heat series in one representative image, it would be one of two guys flying over Niang under the basket for an easy putback. Despite redeeming a subpar season with a superlative eight-game run to start these playoffs -- and an impressive improvement in mentality throughout -- Harris may very well find himself on the trading block, simply because his contract is prohibitive and he's never gonna be the long-term answer to this team's particular struggles.
And then there's Harden. I will say this for New Jimmy: He has done a formidable job of demonstrating both why we desperately need him in the long term and why we can't possibly commit to him for a second longer than necessary. Without him, they never had enough playmaking on the court in this postseason; as brilliant as Maxey has proven, he's not at the point of being able to direct a whole team against the highest-level defenses, and he's more years away from getting there than the Sixers have to waste at this point in Embiid's career. But Harden was never able to produce at a high level for more than two quarters at a time in this series; he'd play at or near a star level in the first half (or in the case of Game Four, quarters two and four) and then you just wouldn't hear from him again. Joel is clearly frustrated with him, and the eye-popping non-stats from Game Six -- no points or assists in the second half, only two shots attempted -- will get the content mill churning about the Point Mortal all summer. Bored Apes seem like a safer long-term bet than James Harden right now.
Still, I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't re-sign him. Hopefully it's not for the supermax at this point -- hard to imagine what team would want to hand Harden that right now, though you never say never in a league with the Knicks and the Kings -- but some deal that returns Harden to Philly for at least one more try at this feels mostly inevitable. There's still some hope to be had with Harden's hamstring that he can experience a Chris Paul-like career rebound once he's able to have a second full offseason to get right, get in shape, and maybe reinvent his game a little to account for lost explosiveness. He's talented and smart enough to do it -- though motivation may be another story, and after 10 years of this, it seems likely that he'll always be lacking and weird in big-game situations no matter his productivity level. But the Sixers are basically in the same situation they were in with Tobias three offseasons ago: He's not really the guy you want at the price tag he's gonna command, but we've invested too much in him already, and there's no path to replacing what he gives us as quickly as we need it if he walks.
That part is gonna be tough, but otherwise, things remain pretty good for the Sixers. They have Embiid, a true MVP candidate every time out, playing the best basketball of his career, still in his prime and still improving every season. They have Maxey, whose rapid improvement year-to-year and even month-to-month opens all sorts of windows for this team that Harden's relative ineffectiveness might've otherwise closed. They have an entire offseason to figure out what to do with the rest of the roster, without having to wait first to see if a smirking 24-year-old is ever going to decide to show up for work again. Hell, they even have a real backup center for once, with Paul Reed showing more than enough this postseason to earn an extended look next year at being Embiid's long-term understudy. Add in a coach who takes chances with lineups and doesn't owe any lifetime debts to DeAndre Jordan and we might really be onto something here.
If you read that last paragraph and felt your eyes reflexively start to roll, I guess I can't blame you. It's been a half-decade now of us slamming our bodies like Inigo Montoya against the door of the Eastern Conference Finals, just waiting for a Fezzik to come along and knock it down for us. Harden wasn't that guy, and it's fair to ask if we're running out of time and chances to find him. Embiid has had to persevere through an absurd pile of physical and spiritual setbacks these last eight years, and Yeah OK But Next Year provides less comfort with each passing season. You can only trust the process for so long when the results come out the same each time.
At least this time, Joel Embiid doesn't -- shouldn't -- have to bear the weight for it. He was an absolute warrior this postseason, hitting the biggest shot of his career in Game Three against Toronto, closing the door on them in Game Six, and fighting against all odds and arena lighting to return for Games Three and Four of the Miami series. It was an inspiring and emotionally overpowering run for the big man, one that wasn't always reflected in his stat lines, but one that demonstrated his value beyond what box scores can measure. He deserves nothing but the most relaxing and restorative offseason, one spent nursing his wounds alongside Arthur and Paula, one full of Netflix binges and Shirley Temple buzzes and blowout victories over small children at video games. He'll be back and ready for next season -- and unlike last year, there shouldn't be much of a journey for us to get there, too.
After Game Five of the Raptors series, I essentially came to a handshake agreement with the basketball gods: Please just get us out of this series right now and I promise I will be fine with whatever postseason fate befalls the Sixers from there. They lived up to their end of the bargain, and perhaps somewhat to my surprise, it looks like I'm going to be able to live up to mine. If we had blown the 3-0 lead to the Raptors... I hesitate to say that I wouldn't have been able to root for the Sixers again, because this team is such a big part of my life and identity (and at least a small part of my professional career), and as long as they have Embiid I doubt I could ever totally get away from them anyway. But the Hawks series took so much out of me that for months I legitimately questioned if I would ever get it back, and such a historic fall to the Toronto Raptors would've taken away even more. I needed them to win that series like I've never needed a team I've cared about to win a series before.
I wanted them to win this Heat series, but I didn't need them to. Joel coming back and the team battling back was enough this time. It sucks that we have the Harden stuff hanging over everything this offseason -- hopefully whatever the answer is there, he and Daryl come to it quickly -- but a fanbase who still gets to root for Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey every year regardless doesn't deserve much outside sympathy, and should probably be a little careful not to do too much woe-is-us bathing. I'll mostly remember this season fondly. I'll love Joel forever. I'll enjoy a nice summer of outdoor drinking and cooking show watching and hoping Jose Alvarado doesn't give the entire lead up in the eighth. I'll listen to the new Kendrick Lamar and Harry Styles albums. I'll look forward to the time when I get to watch the Philadelphia 76ers again.