In the final 3 games against the Sixers, Maxey was the best player on the floor. He out played not only Tatum and Brown, but also Embiid. Embiid coming back altered the series, but he did so as much for Maxey as he did himself. Maxey just torched Boston especially when the team had a big man they had to guard in Embiid. They couldn't help on Maxey anymore. The 3 boston wins were Maxey's 3 worst games in the series. He was the guy that made them
Queta was +3 in the series. His problem was staying out of foul trouble. The team needed him to play more, not less. White was -24, Brown -23, Hauser -17. Pritchard was +44 and Tatum was +28. Too many negatives from too many starters, but it all starts with not being able to defend Maxey. Unless Boston figures that out, nothing else is going to matter.
Maxey was -12 for the series. He is good, streaky, but good. He is tough to cover for every team. I don't endorse building my roster around stopping him, to me, that would be an overreaction to a very small sample size. I actually thought it was Paul George who tipped the scales. White, Brown, and Hauser needed to play better. Hit a few more shots, have a few less turnovers and BOS wins the series easily.
Again, to me the issue was not positional, it was performative. Hauser shouldn't be a starter on a playoff team. Solid bench player. And maybe not Queta either. White was 27% from 3 for the series. Brown had too many turnovers.
Yeah, I am more along these lines than concerned about having a POA defender.
I thought the lack of supporting scoring threats hurt BOS a lot in that series. They had Jaylen & Tatum and then 2 supporting guys in D White and Pritchard. That is fine when the 4 of them are all playing well at the same time but with D White struggling and Pritchard so-so, BOS needed to have 1-2 other scoring options they could turn to. 4 guys rarely all play well at the same time. We need 1-2 more supporting scorers around that D White / Pritchard level.
And of course the lack of a quality big man defender whenever Queta was not on the floor. That opened things up for Embiid which in turn opened up everything for everyone else on Philly.
I saw those as the 2 main issues for BOS in the series.