Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching

[Roy H.]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

[Moranis]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

[Roy H.]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

In general, I don't love starting players series to series, or changing the rotation too much.  It's how Grant ended up on the bench in the first place.

[Phantom255x]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

Idk, for some reason he hasn't played much this postseason. And I don't think it's because he sucks, Mazz just likes tighter rotations I guess. But he definitely should play more this series. I think he'd be great spelling for Al/Timelord, but also in periods where Bam sits and Love is out there. Love will definitely be someone they look to expose on defense consistently.

[Neurotic Guy]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Ok but what would you say the odds are that Joe starts Grant over Rob?  Is it more or less than a million to one?

[SCeltic34]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

I agree that Grant is going to be important in this series, but I'd rather just roll with our best defensive lineup which is Smart/Brown/Tatum/Horford/Timelord.  We just staved off elimination twice by playing elite defense.  GWill is a terrific defender, but Timelord simply takes our team defense to another dimension. 

I'd rather the Heat feel like they need to adjust to us, rather than vice versa.  Our current starting 5 is difficult to beat.

[Goldstar88]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

Grant wasn’t even In the rotation for several games during the regular season and that has continued into the playoffs. He might get some minutes here and there for this coming series, but I’d say the odds that he starts are slim to none.

[Moranis]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

In general, I don't love starting players series to series, or changing the rotation too much.  It's how Grant ended up on the bench in the first place.

Teams play matchups all of the time.  Even the Bulls did that in the Jordan years rotating between Longley, Kukoc, Caffrey, and Rodman depending on what they needed in a particular series or matchup (different years had different players).  That is the point of having different players with different skill sets.  You need to utilize them when appropriate.

[Moranis]

I'd go with:  Smart, Brown, Tatum, Grant, Al against Miami.  I think this is a series where Grant can shine as Miami is smaller, but that still gets Tatum at SF.  I also think Al will do fine against Bam.  Rob comes in for either Al or Grant depending on how it is going.  Grant can also spell Tatum/Brown against Butler on some possessions and hopefully wear him down (something Rob can't do except in help situations) and with Love no longer be an effective post player I don't have the concern about Tatum wearing down guarding him. 

I'm starting the free Grant Williams petition now.

Keep Rob as the backbone of an elite defense and as a lob threat.

Start him for Al then.  I do think Grant needs to start this series.  He is the right guy for this match-up.

Grant wasn’t even In the rotation for several games during the regular season and that has continued into the playoffs. He might get some minutes here and there for this coming series, but I’d say the odds that he starts are slim to none.

Well sure, I wasn't predicting what would happen, I was saying what I would do.  Grant is the best option to start in my opinion in this series based on the match-up.  Now if Herro comes back and Love moves back to the bench, that would change, but if the Heat start both Love and Bam, like they have been doing, then I'd start Grant to take advantage of Love on both ends (and to allow Grant to guard Butler some with Tatum taking Love). 

[Kernewek]

Lifting this conversation from the game thread because this topic will have more legs, I suspect

i know you fellow X’s & O’s guys noticed tonight but joe and the players made another big adjustment, this one on offense. after two consecutive series of teams beating us down with the high PnR to get the switch they wanted against Al, the C’s returned the favor tonight.

Tatum and Rob were very disciplined against embiid in the high PnR switch, and JT was absolutely abusing him. JT mixed in some aggressive drives to the rim, along with some threes when the exhausted embiid sagged on the switch. loved seeing the C’s being disciplined on offense, exploiting a sixers defensive weakness.

praise where praise is due.

Yup, learning late is better than not learning at all 

Also of note defensively - having Horford faking a drop and then following Embiid while having Timelord on the floor to cover the ball handler seemed to really stymie the Sixers' gameplan. Which is weird, because the Celtics' defense last year was essentially driven by this principle, so it's not like the Sixers wouldn't have known it was coming.

On offense, it's an interesting thing -- for the second half of the season there's been a lot of complaints about Mazza's "post-playcalling" offense (not to be confused with calling plays that start from the post), and while I get it on an intellectual level*, it's prone to be littered with 'bad' plays because when our guys aren't in rhythm they generally aren't the kind of players who make the extra pass or the right play.

At this point we've spent so much digital ink talking about this, but I wonder if there's a happy medium to be reached here. Even with a historic game from Tatum, Tenn et al aren't wrong when they say that our 'offense' isn't plays, as such - that's by design, but it's not an unreservedly good thing. Same with the super tight rotation.


* The basic logic of "the defense knows what Tatum & Brown are going to prefer, and they will plan to take those shots away, so we will diminish playcalling to avoid playing to the defender's strength" is not terribly dissimilar in some ways to the triangle - Mazz describes it as a series of "if-than" decisions in the open court, rather than set plays - but, like the triangle, it looks pretty braindead when it's not working.

[tenn_smoothie]

Just like to see a return to the early season offense with lots of off-ball movement and screening.
Mazzulla said he and the other assistants worked all summer on developing more variety in our offense.
He was essentially using a version of Bobby Knight's motion offense where players read the defense and move accordingly.
They were executing it beautifully and then all that movement eventually slowed and returned to the stagnant offense of last season.
Now when we make 3's at the insane level we saw in the second half today in Game 7, the importance of movement is reduced.
We won't shoot like today in many games, we need more to go to in our half-court sets.

The stagnant offense is what eventually got us beat vs Golden State. One big reason for all the turnovers by Tatum and Brown was the fact that they had so few options to turn to with the ball in their hands and the shot clock winding down. There was no open cutter and no shooter coming up off a weak side screen and no post to throw the ball into for scoring or simply to get the ball moving inside/out.

Has Joe ever been asked about this trend after games or practices ?
It's a huge mystery to me and I don't understand why it is not viewed by the Boston media as more important to our success.

[wdleehi]

After reading the 76ers' fans post game, the title looks like "Fire Joel"


 

[Roy H.]

After reading the 76ers' fans post game, the title looks like "Fire Joel"


 

I'm surprised to see such a large percentage of their fanbase turn against him, particularly because he was playing hurt.

[Donoghus]

After reading the 76ers' fans post game, the title looks like "Fire Joel"


 

I'm surprised to see such a large percentage of their fanbase turn against him, particularly because he was playing hurt.

I can't imagine the press conference is helping matters.

[ozgod]

After reading the 76ers' fans post game, the title looks like "Fire Joel"


 

I'm surprised to see such a large percentage of their fanbase turn against him, particularly because he was playing hurt.

It's not pretty on Sixers Reddit right now. But as I mentioned in another thread, fans are harshest on their own players. Just like some people were calling for Tatum to be traded after Games 4 and 5, and other fans couldn't figure out why we were so upset with him given his overall body of work, so the Sixers fans aren't happy with Joel right now.

(click to enlarge)


There's more but it would have taken too long for me to edit out the swear words to meet our forum's standards