Anthony’s Opening Diatribe- Sixers Need To Close It Out Tonight

Author Anthony Gargano and Dylan MacKinnon

May 11th, 2023 10:34 AM

In Anthony Gargano’s Opening Diatribe he discussed how the Sixers just need to close this series out tonight, and avoid the trip back to Boston for Game 7:

“Close-out day. The morning of game 6. This is what’s at stake. You can finally get past the second round. Finally, get past the Celtics. You would face a weakened other side of the bracket. All that stands between us and a pretty good shot at getting to the Finals, and maybe winning it for the first time in 40 years, is tonight’s game. It goes without saying you don’t want to go back to Boston for Mother’s Day. Not that they can’t win that game. But you just want to close it out tonight.

This brings me back to when I was a child. They played the Celtics and were up 3-1. In 1981, Moses was on the other side of the bracket. We all kept saying, all they needed to do was get to the Finals and they would win it. They were up 3-1, and they lost game 5, lost game 6, and lost game 7. The following year it was the same scenario. Up 3-1. Lose game 5. Come home, and lose game 6. They go back to Boston and everyone counted them out… The next thing you know they were able to win game 7. That was the Beat LA chant.

These series are just white knuckle. So just finish it tonight. Come back home. I can’t wait to hear the building. They have played so well. You had that great game Sunday. Then they played the perfect game on Tuesday. Now is the time. You have got them. They are wounded. You gotta kill them, stake through the heart, and burn the body… This is it. You get to do it at home. The place will be filled with love and joy.”

You can listen to his full Opening Diatribe below:

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9 Reasons the Sixers Game 5 Performance Can Be Sustainable

• They Didn't Need a 40 Point Game By Harden

  In the past two wins, it took a time machine to bring back the Houston Rockets version of James Harden for the Sixers to pull it out. 45 points in game 1, then 42 in game 4. Both times he hit a game-winning 3. While that is great, it is not a sustainable recipe for success. They lost the other two games because Harden struggled badly from the floor.

  But in game 5, it was not hero Harden. He was good and hit some big buckets, but moreso he just played a solid all-around game. Made shots when he had to. Drew some fouls. And ran the offense efficiently.  That is something you can easily see him sustaining. He won’t score 40 every night. If they only won when he scored that much, they would not go much further. But seeing that they can win when he scores 17, that is a very good sign.

• Embiid Didnt Need to Be Anything More than His Average Night

  Likewise, they didn’t need a monster scoring night from Embiid. He scored 33. Which we know he can do every night. He averaged just around 33 points per game in the regular season and scored 30 plus points now in games 3, 4. and 5. The Sixers needed a 50-point night from Embiid the one time they beat the Celtics in the regular season. But while he played great, it was a great night he can easily repeat in every future game.

• Didn't need Bad Nights from Jaylen Brown or Jayson Tatum

  If they had won, but one of either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown played really poorly, it would be hard to bank on that happening again. Luckily, they both played pretty well. Tatum put up a game-high 36 points. Brown scored 24 and shot over 50%. They lost anyway. Are the two of them going to combine for more than 60 points in games 6 or 7? Probably not. 60 combined points is about where they have been all series long, and all season long.

• Was Not a Crazy Good Team Shooting Night

  We have seen nights before where a team blows a team out because of some crazy shooting night where everyone on the team was nailing every shot. That was the Celtics in games 1 and 2. it’s a lot of fun to watch, but you cant shoot over 50% as a team from 3, and 60% total every game. That’s not sustainable. But in game 5, the Sixers shot 50.6% as a team from the field, and 40% from deep.

  In the regular season, they shot 48.7% from the field, and 38.7% from deep. Nothing they did last night was way out of line for what they do on an average night. They weren’t shooting the lights out, they were just playing as well as they do every other night. They also scored 115, while averaging 115.2 pts per game in the regular season.

  They shot well in game 5, but only because they are a good shooting team.

• Won Despite Shooting Less Free Throws

  The knock on the Sixers all season long, mostly from people who don’t watch basketball, has been the Sixers are nothing without Free Throws. They did shoot 27 last night which was just 2 more than they shot on the average night. And it would be easy for someone to say the Sixers won because they were getting calls. But here is the thing. The Celtics shot even more Free Throws.

  They got to shoot 34 to the Sixers’ 27. 34 by the way is way more than the Celtics usually get. On average they shoot 19 FTs a night. The difference was the Sixers, as they always do, hit their FTS. The Celtics hit just 73.5% from the line. Below their season average of 81.6. But that difference is more than made up by them shooting 15 more FTs than they usually do.

  The Sixers didn’t need the FT advantage to win. The Celtics scored 2 more points off of FTs than the Sixers did. If you took that all away, and no team shot any FTs, the Sixers would have won by more.

• Turned it Over More Than Usual

  The next thing I looked to see why the Sixers had such a huge win is if the turnover numbers were down. But in fact, they turned it over more than usual. 13, after averaging 10 a game in the rest of the playoffs. Keeping the turnovers at 13 or under should not be too tough for them. And on the other end, The Celtics’ turnovers were down a little bit.

• No Explosion off the Bench

  It was yet another game where they did not get a ton off of the bench. Just 16 total points. Sure 10 of those came from a surprising source in Danuel House. But no one else did much. Can they get 16 combined points from DeAnthony Melton, Georges Niang, House, and Paul Reed again? Probably. That’s not some impossible feat. Even if its not House. They each just need to score 4 points a piece, and they can match the bench scoring.

• 49 Combined Points from the Other 3 starters

  Maxey went off and had quite the game. He may not reach 30 again. But could Maxey, Harris, and Tucker combine for 49 again? Maybe. They won by 12, so you could even knock that down to 39 combined, and they would still have won. The point is, they could get similar total production from those 3 again. Maybe not quite so much from Maxey. But if Harris doesn’t get in foul trouble, he stays on the court, and maybe he reaches 20 points. Not to mention Harden could have scored more than 17 if he tried to push it.

• They are Coming Home

  Lastly, they did all of this on the road. Now they are coming home. They place where they have lost just 6 games since the calendar turned to 2023. There will be a crazy Philly crowd behind them as they try to win game 6. If they can do all of this in Boston, they can certainly do it in Philly. Not to say it is a lock. Just that there is nothing they did in game 5, that they cant repeat in game 6.

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Author Anthony Gargano and Dylan MacKinnon

Category:

• 76ers // NBA
• 97.5 The Fanatic

Tags:

Celtics,NBA Playoffs,Sixers