Five Thoughts on Sixers-Knicks Through Two Games

MOC gives his thoughts on the Sixers through two playoff heartbreaks, and details what they (and we) should be focusing on from here.

Despite the fact that the Sixers continue to lose playoff games in ways previously unimaginable, I don’t feel anywhere near as defeated as I did after heartbreaking playoff losses of years past.

Perhaps that’s because time has gone by and made us all numb, perhaps it’s because most of the Sixers’ heartbreaking losses tend to come in the back half of the series, or perhaps we’re just not rattled given how the series has gone so far. Regardless, I think there’s a certain awareness from most Sixers fans (as well as seemingly the players on the team) that this series is nowhere near over. The first two games have both been extremely close – and obviously, Game 2 was lost in large part by several blown calls from the referees.

If you’d like to wallow in the sadness of feeling like it’s all over, I wouldn’t blame you – you might find Dan Olinger’s piece comforting for that. But I’m not quite ready to wallow just yet. Here are five thoughts on what we’ve learned about this matchup through two games, and how the Sixers can use that knowledge going forward. 

Get Buddy Hield off the court ASAP

It’s almost surreal watching Buddy Hield right now. It feels like we are watching a version of him that has aged seven years and shrunk two inches from the guy we’ve watched on the Pacers and Kings over the past few seasons.

He is giving max effort on every single offensive possession, and he just can’t even get himself enough space to even attempt a shot. He is contributing nothing of value, and should find himself a seat on the bench.

Having De’Anthony Melton back to fill his role would be a major upgrade, but if not, those minutes should belong to Cam Payne and Ricky Council IV. The Sixers cannot win this series if the Knicks are getting elite bench production and the Sixers are trotting out nothing but liabilities. Give Payne and Council some run, and see if they can offer a jolt of energy. 

By the way: now is not the time to be re-litigating this, but I think we can safely call this deadline a major failure for Daryl Morey. I would rather have Marcus Morris straight up than Buddy Hield, and the Sixers traded three second round picks along with him in that exchange. What’s worse: this is the third time in his four years that Morey has failed to acquire a single playoff contributor at the deadline. In 2022, he got James Harden, but the other three years, it’s been George Hill, Jalen McDaniels, and now Buddy Hield – total zeroes in terms of their impact on the team’s ultimate destiny.

Meanwhile, it’s not as if Royce O’Neale is exactly lighting the world on fire, but he is playing 25 solid minutes per game for Phoenix and was traded for the same price as Hield – three second round picks. You know who else wouldn’t hurt to have in a physical, grimy series like this? Pat Bev. Hell, Danuel House and Jaden Springer would be better than Buddy Hield. The Sixers tried to go half-in, half-out at this deadline, and ended up paying a price to make their depth considerably worse. Awful stuff. 

Keep helping off Josh Hart

As I highlighted before the series, Josh Hart’s iffy accuracy and slow trigger from 3 was always going to be a key factor in this series. So far, you could make the case that it has backfired, given that Hart is a soul-crushing 8-15 from deep through two games. But I would argue that the Sixers should continue being relatively aggressive at helping off of Hart, both because he simply can’t sustain this pace, and because the Sixers are getting a ton of value out of the help they’re sending off of Hart.

Jalen Brunson’s slow start to this series has been well documented, and the Sixers’ individual defenders – namely Kelly Oubre Jr. – deserve lots of credit for the job they’ve done in one-on-one situations. But the Sixers are also stifling Brunson with help coming directly off of Hart’s man. Watch Kyle Lowry in these clips. 

Even if the help isn’t coming directly off of Hart, the Sixers are sending help from his side of the floor and betting on their rotations to be able to cover ground. See here.

There are trade-offs to any defensive strategy. You have to make a bet on whether you are more likely to lose by playing Brunson one-on-one every time, or sending help off of Hart. So far, the Sixers are smothering Brunson, and the results they are getting are solid overall, despite Hart’s hot shooting – the Knicks have averaged a half-court offensive rating of 86.5 through two games. 

Even dating back to his Villanova days, Hart has always been not just a poor shooter, but a very hesitant one who overthinks open looks. If he continues to look super confident and make every open look, you have to adjust and guard him a bit more closely, at least until he cools down and gets back in his own head a bit. 

But overall, I’m more than willing to help off of him. If this is his Cody Ross 2010 NLCS series, so be it. It’s the right strategy, and even as Hart has knocked down shots, it’s yielded solid overall results so far. 

This series should be a teaching moment for Joel Embiid’s future

I want to be clear that I’m not trying to criticize Joel Embiid here. I think his effort and his overall performance have been excellent given the circumstances. I applaud him for what he’s been able to do given his injury. 

That being said: The way that he looks in this series has to be a lesson (one of many such lessons) moving forward for how he needs to handle his body. Embiid needs to lose 25 pounds in the off-season and play 55 games next year on purpose. 

Enough is enough. It’s time to stop acting like his body is made to handle the same load as everyone else’s, and start realizing that he needs a different approach to the season – one akin to Kawhi Leonard during his Toronto year. Play two games per week, rest whenever the slightest nagging injury arises, and do whatever it takes to be ready for the playoffs. 

Game 2 and the Pain of Being a Sixers Fan

It has now been 2.5 months since Embiid had a surgery that has an average of a six week recovery timeline, and he is still experiencing significant issues. He has seemingly re-injured the knee twice, not because of horribly awkward falls but simply due to high-impact landings. Again: his body is not the average athlete’s body, so it’s time to stop pretending as if he should be treated as such. 

The current mode of approaching things is unacceptable. If it is true, as Pat Bev said on his podcast, that Embiid’s meniscus injury emerged nine games before it was announced and he simply tried to play through it, all of the decision makers involved blew whatever hopes the Sixers had this season – if Embiid had undergone his surgery, say, two weeks earlier, we would probably be looking at a much healthier Embiid right now.

He needs a specialized plan and approach. He is at that point in his career where he has racked up enough regular season accomplishments – it’s time to operate solely with the goal in mind of being ready for the playoffs. 

I’m not a doctor or an exercise performance expert, but one could reasonably assume that losing weight – like big men such as Tim Duncan did later in their careers – would help lessen the burden that those knees have to carry, and therefore lessen the likelihood of re-injury. Again, I applaud Joel for what he’s been able to do on one leg in this series, but I would like to see a slimmer version of him next season, with a much more conservative approach to his body throughout the regular season.  

Tobias Harris *can* play in this series

Everything positive you say about Tobias Harris at this point has to include the caveat that it is nowhere near acceptable given the money he is making, but I just wanted to give a brief hat tip to him for his effort in Game 2. He didn’t provide a ton of value on offense, but he hit a couple open threes, hustled hard in transition, made a handful of nice plays in one-on-one defense, and simply looked to have a renewed level of energy throughout the game. I feel as though we can safely say he has established himself as playable in this series.

That’s a big deal because it’s very unclear where the Sixers would have turned had Tobias remained stuck in Total Saboteur mode. At this point, I would say that the Sixers’ closing lineup should be Maxey, Lowry, Embiid, and whichever two out of Harris, Batum, and Oubre is playing better on that particular night. 

Stop acting like the series is over

Last but most importantly: let’s stop the loser talk. This series is nowhere near over. The Sixers have been the better team for the vast majority of the series so far; if they don’t completely collapse in the final 47 seconds of Game 2, and the 3 minutes of the second quarter in Game 1 after Embiid went out, they would be up 2-0. 

Just two years ago, the Sixers won two straight home games with an even more injured Embiid after going down 2-0 to a Miami Heat team that is far better than this Knicks team. Last year, the Suns won two straight home games against a far superior Nuggets team. The mentally weak Celtics came back to tie the series after going down 3-0 in the Conference Finals. (Of course, none of those teams finished the job – to find that, you’d have to go back to the 2022 Mavs beating the Suns in 7 after going down 0-2.) 

Point being: I feel confident that unless Embiid’s knee deteriorates further, we will at least have a competitive series here. There are numerous examples in the past two years alone of teams going down 2-0 and coming back to even the series. Hell, the Sixers themselves have done it. I’m bracing for a long series. 

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Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health. Get 20% off E-Lyte, Gut+, and all Body Bio products with promo code FIRECJ at Body Bio’s website.