THE Philadelphia 76ers continued their pre-season with a conflict towards the reigning champions, the Boston Celtics. Many of the veteran gamers rested on the second evening of a row and it confirmed. Boston went up 22 early and, unsurprisingly, by no means regarded again. Closing rating: 139-89.
Paul George renewed his talks with the Sixers in an actual recreation for the primary time final evening in a loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. He very properly performedregardless that Philly’s porous protection within the first half laid the muse for a loss. George, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Caleb Martin, Kelly Oubre Jr., Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, Eric Gordon and Reggie Jackson had been dominated out, however Boston, which hasn’t performed since Sunday, had most of its key gamers on the bridge, resulting in considerably unbalanced queues. At the very least Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford had been additionally absent and the published was not repeatedly delayed.
Having a back-to-back within the preseason is loopy, however the Sixers nonetheless had one. Listed here are three takeaways from their recreation towards the Celtics.
1. Jared McCain appears like he belongs
McCain had carte blanche to take management of this match with so many gamers above him within the pecking order. He did so on offense, however continued to play exhausting in all sides of the sport. On the record of explanation why Sixers followers proceed to observe this recreation, the rookie occupied the highest 10 spots on the record – and legitimately regarded actually good.
The Sixers’ first-round decide struggled on rebounds, snatching one on the defensive finish from Jaylen Brown early within the recreation. He discarded and discarded each failure that got here his manner. He defended as finest he might, producing a couple of takeaways, and by no means let the scoreboard diminish his efforts.
McCain missed most of his early appears and shot poorly from deep, however he made a couple of nice buckets early. He froze Luke Kornet in his footwear to make a layup beneath him then spun round Derrick White to attain along with his left hand. Within the second quarter, as some extent guard with out Jeff Dowtin Jr. alongside him, he received a layup proper off the highest of the glass to fall down.
The Sixers had been clearly undermanned for this recreation, however nonetheless, they made it very troublesome for McCain to get something going. Dowtin did one of the best job of placing issues collectively and nobody else round McCain regarded very calm towards the protection. McCain, with a collection of nifty strikes, overcame his lack of explosive athleticism and made some fairly pictures on the NBA’s most imposing perimeter protection. Regardless of being hounded by White, one of many sport’s finest defenders, he by no means wavered.
McCain’s remaining stat line in 32 minutes: 20 factors, three rebounds, three assists, three steals, 9-21 on area targets, 1-8 on three-pointers.
2. Guerschon Yabusele should get well minutes at PF, proper?
Within the first three preseason video games, Yabusele performed heart. He was the principle choice behind Drummond and began at 5 on this recreation. Nick Nurse talked about his positional flexibility earlier than, however he mentioned he was finest suited to being an influence ahead. To this point, he hasn’t performed there this preseason.
It will have been harder to get Yabusele minutes at 4 with the 76ers’ first and second-string heart, however not unattainable. Taking part in him alongside KJ Martin, who additionally served as a small 5 at occasions, would not depend. Adem Bona was nonetheless energetic for this match. The potential of overlapping their minutes, even just a bit, was left apart, as was the deployment of Yabusele with Max Fiedler.
Though Yabu’s ground spacing has been beneficial at heart and he has performed exhausting, he would not look like vertically imposing sufficient to be a middle for lengthy stretches. Every part about this recreation was made very troublesome for the Sixers, so no takeaway from this recreation is extraordinarily important. However even towards a third-string heart in Kornet, Philly’s protection was very susceptible down low.
Towards his former NBA workforce, Yabusele scored eight factors and made two of his 4 three-point makes an attempt. After a nasty miss, he got here again down and did his subsequent two appears. He passes rapidly, maintaining the ball transferring and solely seeking to get one thing for himself if he is in or close to the paint. His efficiency was respectable even when his candidacy for the small ball 5 place is changing into increasingly fragile.
3. Preseason scheduling is so silly typically
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NBA groups are crafting their very own preseason schedules in a manner that Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic has analyzed in depth and in comparison with school soccer. The primary query on everybody’s thoughts heading into this recreation was raised profusely after Boston’s starters mowed down Philly’s third-stringers and fringe NBA guys: why would the Sixers schedule a back-to-back for pre-season?
Not solely was it a back-to-back collection, nevertheless it began in Des Moines and culminated in Boston. This street journey additionally features a recreation in Atlanta two days later. That is a number of miles in a short while, even for an everyday season recreation. However Philadelphia chosen this calendar.
The Celtics (and Denver Nuggets) opened the preseason in Abu Dhabi earlier than anybody else, so that they did not need to go dwelling and play once more. They naturally needed to reacclimatize to the time zone and take a break from the journey. However ready virtually per week for his or her subsequent recreation looks like rather a lot.
Joe Mazzulla enjoying his starters within the second half, even with an insurmountable lead, made sense. The Celtics need to improve them for the common season and enjoying them only one shift may not have been sufficient. The workforce most likely did not need their gamers to be inactive for greater than per week, so it was higher to indicate up towards a glorified G League roster than have them return after a lot time without work.
The Sixers confronted the Timberwolves on the dwelling of their G League affiliate, the Iowa Wolves, which was a homecoming for head coach Nick Nurse. They naturally would not need their key gamers enjoying on the second straight evening of the preseason. Regardless that extra veterans had been rested for this recreation than anticipated, Philly deliberately left itself with out most of its rotation gamers. Some new gamers received an opportunity to play collectively, however many others watched from the bench in avenue garments.
Probably the most lifelike assumption is that Philadelphia needed to take a better have a look at its fringe gamers. He needed to provide McCain and different kids an opportunity to play significant minutes towards NBA competitors — one of the best the league needed to supply, at that. In doing so, they had been capable of put themselves within the footwear of the New Zealand Breakers for an evening, watching the Celtics I climbed the rating very quickly. It is basketball, Suzyn.
The subsequent cease within the 76ers preseason is Monday towards the Atlanta Hawks.
