In the Tatum/Brown Celtics era, these two franchises have faced off twice in the postseason.
The Celtics are 2-0 with a total record of 8-1.
By now, we’ve all seen the memes
Which brings us to 2023.
A look around the landscape of the East tells you just how wide open things are.
It’s a nice reminder that in the NBA Playoffs, anyone can be beaten.
Is he really hurt?
Is it something he can tough out and still be effective?
We have no idea as of the writing of this blog.
My personal thought is Embiid plays.
This series is too important.
He’s about to win the MVP on Tuesday.
From a Celtics perspective, this is important for a few reasons.
For starters, it’s a test of their focus.
The Hawks won Game 3 by hitting like 75% on contested 3PA.
They won Game 5 because the Celts decided to play like assholes over the final 5 minutes.
There wasn’t a game in that series where they didn’t show up and overlooked the Hawks.
They just failed to execute.
But that list from Grande?
If Embiid does play, it’ll be interesting to see how the Celts approach him.
In their series finale, when they were without Jaylen Brown and Rob, Joel Embiid cooked this defense.
We have no idea if Embiid can even play the 39 minutes he did in that game.
Despite their history, the Celts have had an Embiid problem basically the entire season.
In 4 games this year, Embiid put up 36.8/11.8/4.3 on 61% shooting with 47 FTA.
Because when you play PHI, it’s not really about stopping this version of Embiid.
Nobody is really stopping him offensively.
It’s about exposing the rest of the roster and making their weaknesses beat you.
Here are a couple of things I’m interested in seeing if Joe does.
In the first round against BKN, Harden shot just 34/42%.
Nothing we’ve really seen so far suggests he’s ready to do that.
He wants to back you down, get into the paint/10ft aream and then use a turnaround jumper.
So far in these playoffs, Tobias Harris ranks in the 100th percentile in Post Up offense.
He’s averaging 1.80 points per possession, shooting 77.8%.
He’s scored on 80% of his post ups, which is a pretty glaring number.
So fat this season, Harris has had 2 good games and 2 stinkers against the Celts.
This is a matchup someone like Jaylen is going to have to win.
Just ask the Nets.
He has to figure out how to handle Jalen McDaniels' length, and he cannot settle.
With Embiid out or hobbled, there is no real rim protection outside of Paul Reed.
This means maybe giving Tatum a few more looks to start a possession in the post.
If the Sixers go zone, put Tatum at the nail and let him go to work.
PJ Tucker I’m sure will get the assignment, and that’s a matchup Tatum has to win.
But if he catches the ball and IMMEDIATELY goes into a move, things look a whole lot better.
This is maybe the biggest fuck around and find out angle of this series for me.
I know there are fans out there that are doing the exact same thing we saw against the Hawks.
I would suggest you remember what we just went through with ATL.
There are no givens in the postseason.
It does not matter what things look like on paper.
Guys will overachieve, other guys might have an off night one game, shit happens.
You still need to go out and execute.
This is still going to be a war as far as I’m concerned.
One game at a time, one possession at a time, one dribble at a time.
