While hurt of the sweep from the Knicks is there, reality needs to set in for Sixers
PHILADELPHIA — The physical and mental scars were all still fresh when coach Nick Nurse and his Sixers players met with the media following a 30-spanking from the New York Knicks that ended their season in a 4-0 sweep at the hands of their divisional foes.
Quentin Grimes wore a bandage over his left eye, covering a laceration he incurred early in the game. Nurse wobbled his head back and forth while answering questions, as if some answer as to what had just happened needed to be dislodged in his brain. Tyrese Maxey blankley looked out into the room, while teammate VJ Edgecombe answered questions. And when Maxey spoke, Edgecombe closed his eyes for a long period of time, as if wishing he was about to awake from a bad dream.
The reality is what it is — the Knicks showed during these four games that they are light years ahead of the Sixers right now. They move the ball hot-potato style to find open shots. They make those open shots more times than not. They have a point guard in Jalen Brunson who controls every aspect of the game for his team, and they know exactly how to read what he is going to do. They cut for him, when needed. They clear out when his advantage over the defender is monumental. They run the floor in order to be on the receiving end of his rewarding passes. They bump and push and shove for space. They go after offensive rebounds as if each one will be a game-changer.
And when it comes to the defensive end, they fight even harder, with hands that are as annoying as Knicks fans invading Xfinity Mobile Arena. They are like bullies in a schoolyard, like every basket is belongs to them, saying “give it back” with their actions.
In short, the Knicks right now are light years away from the Sixers. And as great as the first round series triumph was over the Boston Celtics after getting into a 3-1 series hole, the domination in this series somewhat smeared that accomplishment.
Yes, the Knicks are playing their best basketball of the season right now. And yes, the Sixers usual instability as far as who can play and who is hurting and all of that was on display again. But it’s more than that when you look at the organization moving forward. When asked about how the team may be better next season, Maxey pulled out the box score sheet and carefully studied.
“We got into the playoffs and we won a round. I’m not huge into moral victories, but you look down our roster, that’s pretty good. It’s VJ’s first time in the playoffs, of course. (Dominick) Barlow, Justin (Edwards), (Adem) Bona. Real rotation pieces that we actually had and everybody else on the bench as well. We’re going to continue to get better, going to continue to grow. We have to get through the growing pains.”
Is that enough and is it acceptable? Can you go into another season hoping for the good health of two of your best players in Joel Embiid and Paul George? Can you rely on Barlow to become a dependable all-around player with a specific NBA skill set? Can Edwards become the knock-down three-point shooter that appears to be his craft for staying in the league? Is Bona going to be reliable enough to be a true backup center that can give 15 minutes where the good substantially outweighs the bad on most nights?
“I think this group is pretty good,” Maxey said. “I think this group is pretty talented. Experience really does matter and I was talking to Kyle (Lowry) a little bit about it after the game. That group over there has been together for a minute. They added Mikal. Jalen, Josh, Mitch, those guys are battle tested. This is their third or fourth run at the playoffs. That stuff matters. That’s hard to break through. I’m hoping we can keep as many guys as we can. I don’t know contracts. If the front office feels we need to add some stuff, add whoever we need to add, the shooting or whatever it may be. We go out and find some of that as well and lace them up again in October and let’s get to it.”
First off, pretty good isn’t going to cut it. Maxey knows that, but he wasn’t going to come out minutes after a stinging playoff loss and suggest to management what they should or shouldn’t do. He would probably never do that. But he knows. Things aren’t good enough. And hope is just that when it comes to the core group staying healthy enough for a full season.
As for the contracts, Kelly Oubre Jr., Andre Drummond and Quentin Grimes are free agents. That’s a starter and two of your main subs. Their replacements, should they leave, probably are not on the current roster. So there’s that. And it’s not just a case of replacing them, if that is what the team decides to do, it’s a case of improving upon them. Perhaps the team had that when it comes to Grimes if he departs, but Jared McCain isn’t here anymore.
“First five possessions, I think four of them were wide open threes and we didn’t make any of them and they were running off those rebounds and scoring in transition,” said Nurse of New York’s hot start on Sunday that got it out to a 20-6 lead. “We did a poor job of communicating in transition. We watched several of those clips at halftime and we just weren’t communicating good enough. They weren’t super complicated transition run backs, we just got two guys on one and couldn’t get it talked out to get ourselves back. So, I think a lot of those were in transition. Energy was a big gap between their energy and our energy, I thought, and we dug ourselves a big hole that we couldn’t get out of.”
Translation: “We put our players in a good enough position to compete, they just didn’t get it done.” Maybe Nurse was saying that knowing full well Embiid (ankle and hip), Maxey (strained tendon in pinky on shooting hand) and Oubre (strained adductor) weren’t 100 percent. Or maybe because his starting five on Sunday had barely played enough games together to have the communication he desired.
Nurse talked a ton at the end of the season and during the playoffs about matchups, and how his team needed to defend this on the other team, and matchup with that from their opponents. The question that stood out to me was this: Isn’t there any time that you put a lineup out on the floor and perhaps the other team has to adjust to you? I asked him that once and his answer wasn’t a direct no, but it didn’t lean close to being yes, either.
Both Embiid and George mentioned the excitement they had to go into an offseason and be able to work on their game, as opposed to using the time off to heal injuries. That is big. Maxey insisted that he will come back an even better and more well-rounded player next season. And to a man, the excitement they are feeling from the anticipated growth of 20-year-old Edgecombe is off the charts.
With some hope, and reality, those are very good thoughts. But still, it’s not enough. Not enough to catch where the Knicks are going to be next year. Maybe not enough to be able to conquer a Boston team that will have a fully healthy Jayson Tatum. And don’t forget about the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers, who are still playing.
Improvement and good health. That’s what the Sixers are relying on right now, as the sting of the sweep is still felt. Time will tell what more the organization is going to do to supplement those two areas. But make no mistake, much more has to be done in order to be a viable contender in the East.
