76ers (10-17) at Celtics (22-7) Game #30 12/25/24

[mobilija]

Missed game.

What happened to Porzingis?

[Silas]

Missed game.

What happened to Porzingis?

sprained ankle, but maybe not bad.

[Phantom255x]

Missed game.

What happened to Porzingis?

Tweaked his ankle early in the game, still played the first half but then was ruled out at halftime.

Don't think it's anything serious but unfortunately it just seems like a common occurrence with him. Any small slip/trip and it's "ankle watch"   

[Phantom255x]

Our perimeter defense is just terrible.

Yeah we can get mad that a scrub like Caleb Martin is going off on us, but if we're literally leaving him WIDE OPEN by 10 feet every time, then yeah of course he is gonna hit them. Not just this game, a lot of our games this season it seems the other team can generate easy, open 3s and it's hurting us. I definitely don't remember it being this bad last year, in fact I think our defense as a whole has gotten worse this season.

[jpotter33]

Putrid effort game. Can't just try to play hard for the final five minutes and win games when you don't play D and just chuck threes most of the rest of the game.

This team has some serious problems, and if they don't fix them soon they're going to be looking at a dogfight for seeding in an Eastern Conference that they won by 14 games last year.

This is a very strange game to complain about threes. They were 20/49 which is 40.5%. From two they were 23/46, which is 50%. That means the three were a significantly higher value shot tonight. Shooting threes wasn't the issue, TO's and Caleb Martin becoming Ray Allen every time he plays the C's were the issue tonight. 

Its also worth noting the Cs's were down 2 starters tonight with Jrue out and KP only playing 13 minutes. I wouldn't panic too much about this one.

Sure, if this was an isolated scenario, but the issues we saw tonight have been present for awhile with this team, particularly the over-reliance on threes, lackluster defensive effort, and overall lack of engagement for large parts of games.

I will say that I do think the injury issues we've had throughout the season have certainly contributed to our inconsistent play. We're much less healthy than we were last year, and most of our top 8 rotation guys have already missed a handful of games each with us only having a few games with a completely healthy top 8 rotation.

[scaryjerry]

Putrid effort game. Can't just try to play hard for the final five minutes and win games when you don't play D and just chuck threes most of the rest of the game.

This team has some serious problems, and if they don't fix them soon they're going to be looking at a dogfight for seeding in an Eastern Conference that they won by 14 games last year.

This is a very strange game to complain about threes. They were 20/49 which is 40.5%. From two they were 23/46, which is 50%. That means the three were a significantly higher value shot tonight. Shooting threes wasn't the issue, TO's and Caleb Martin becoming Ray Allen every time he plays the C's were the issue tonight. 

Its also worth noting the Cs's were down 2 starters tonight with Jrue out and KP only playing 13 minutes. I wouldn't panic too much about this one.

I was with you until had to note KP and jrue being out of the lineup. Always an excuse. Who. Cares.
They were getting smoked when KP was in there and he simply will not at any point miraculously be a player that stays healthy, so get use to it. Jrue has been playing awful as of late and it?s just a waste of breath to mention. 76ers played better basketball and beat us and in the last 10 games have a better record. This wasn?t some sort of fluke

[bello_man09]

too many meltdowns on defense, Kp can't play 3 games in a row smh...I am worried guys.

[keevsnick]

Putrid effort game. Can't just try to play hard for the final five minutes and win games when you don't play D and just chuck threes most of the rest of the game.

This team has some serious problems, and if they don't fix them soon they're going to be looking at a dogfight for seeding in an Eastern Conference that they won by 14 games last year.

This is a very strange game to complain about threes. They were 20/49 which is 40.5%. From two they were 23/46, which is 50%. That means the three were a significantly higher value shot tonight. Shooting threes wasn't the issue, TO's and Caleb Martin becoming Ray Allen every time he plays the C's were the issue tonight. 

Its also worth noting the Cs's were down 2 starters tonight with Jrue out and KP only playing 13 minutes. I wouldn't panic too much about this one.

Sure, if this was an isolated scenario, but the issues we saw tonight have been present for awhile with this team, particularly the over-reliance on threes, lackluster defensive effort, and overall lack of engagement for large parts of games.

I will say that I do think the injury issues we've had throughout the season have certainly contributed to our inconsistent play. We're much less healthy than we were last year, and most of our top 8 rotation guys have already missed a handful of games each with us only having a few games with a completely healthy top 8 rotation.

I think your defensive critique is totally valid, they've been closer to "average" on defense this year then "good," which is surprising considering they were lite last year. I think a lot of it has been effort. They are doing the "we just won a title, let's coast a bit" thing that title teams sometimes do on defense.

I just don't see the three point shooting as an issue, like at all. The team is designed to shoot threes. They were the best offense in league history last year shooting a bunch of threes. They won a title shooting threes. This is a team without an absolutely elite to scorer (Tatum is closest but he isn't at a Jokic, Giannis elite efficiency level). They generate offense by taking and making threes, which they did well in this game. Asking them to take fewer is asking them to do things they just aren't as good at.

[scaryjerry]

Can people stop giving them the defending champ *coasting* excuse?
Every season is a new year with the same ultimate goal where the whole job is to develop good habits and routines and chemistry to build for the playoffs and the ultimate goal, so if there purposely *coasting* and planning on *flipping a switch* then they are simply just failing this years team. good luck with that

[Billz401]

Pritchard and Dwhite have been playing like absolute kaka lately.. And im starting to get annoyed with this garbage officiating. How do they completely swallow the whistle on one end of a close game?

[greenhead85]

We made more FGM, 3 ball made and rebounds (12 more chances to score). It was close. Could have gone either way. We missed 5 free throws.

[Billz401]

Our perimeter defense is just terrible.

Yeah we can get mad that a scrub like Caleb Martin is going off on us, but if we're literally leaving him WIDE OPEN by 10 feet every time, then yeah of course he is gonna hit them. Not just this game, a lot of our games this season it seems the other team can generate easy, open 3s and it's hurting us. I definitely don't remember it being this bad last year, in fact I think our defense as a whole has gotten worse this season.

The guard play in particular has been awful. Jrue hasnt been the same defensive stopper he was last year, pritchard seems to have taken a step backwards on D, and Dwhite looks like he missed the defensive meetings all week because he has no idea who to stay with on switch opportunities

[SparzWizard]

We made more FGM, 3 ball made and rebounds (12 more chances to score). It was close. Could have gone either way. We missed 5 free throws.

Fools gold the last 4 mins of the game. Otherwise this would've been a blown out by the 76ers

[jpotter33]

Putrid effort game. Can't just try to play hard for the final five minutes and win games when you don't play D and just chuck threes most of the rest of the game.

This team has some serious problems, and if they don't fix them soon they're going to be looking at a dogfight for seeding in an Eastern Conference that they won by 14 games last year.

This is a very strange game to complain about threes. They were 20/49 which is 40.5%. From two they were 23/46, which is 50%. That means the three were a significantly higher value shot tonight. Shooting threes wasn't the issue, TO's and Caleb Martin becoming Ray Allen every time he plays the C's were the issue tonight. 

Its also worth noting the Cs's were down 2 starters tonight with Jrue out and KP only playing 13 minutes. I wouldn't panic too much about this one.

Sure, if this was an isolated scenario, but the issues we saw tonight have been present for awhile with this team, particularly the over-reliance on threes, lackluster defensive effort, and overall lack of engagement for large parts of games.

I will say that I do think the injury issues we've had throughout the season have certainly contributed to our inconsistent play. We're much less healthy than we were last year, and most of our top 8 rotation guys have already missed a handful of games each with us only having a few games with a completely healthy top 8 rotation.

I think your defensive critique is totally valid, they've been closer to "average" on defense this year then "good," which is surprising considering they were lite last year. I think a lot of it has been effort. They are doing the "we just won a title, let's coast a bit" thing that title teams sometimes do on defense.

I just don't see the three point shooting as an issue, like at all. The team is designed to shoot threes. They were the best offense in league history last year shooting a bunch of threes. They won a title shooting threes. This is a team without an absolutely elite to scorer (Tatum is closest but he isn't at a Jokic, Giannis elite efficiency level). They generate offense by taking and making threes, which they did well in this game. Asking them to take fewer is asking them to do things they just aren't as good at.

But there's a pretty significant difference between the team's three point shooting last year and this year. We're shooting around 20% more threes than last year at a historically high pace that is going to shatter the three point records, and in order to get those numbers up, a lot of it is coming at the expense of the quality of these added threes leading to lower percentages - hence why we're 15th in 3pfg% this year when we were 2nd last year. While looking at defender range the increase in three point shots aren't terrible and are mostly when open or wide open with only a moderate increase of shots on tight coverage, there are definitely significant jumps in three point shots off the dribble as compared to off the pass from last year, which are significantly less efficient shots.

I'm not against a higher volume of three points hots, but we're literally unprecedented in how many we are taking this year by a fair margin. And it's not really a fair comparison to just point at last year and say "it worked last year so why not this year?", because the proportions are substantially different to make it a legitimate one-to-one comparison. The volume to efficiency ratio that we're shooting threes this year is much, much different than what we did last year.

[hodgy03038]

Tough to win with all the stupid turnovers, the missed free throws and the bench was pretty bad today Pritchard, Hauser specifically. Didn't help that the unicorn had to sit out after the ankle turn. TAPE THE ANKLES PLEASE!!