I love what Collins has done with the Sixers and I think it's great for the NBA that he is back on the sidelines, but I wasn't a big fan of the message he was giving his team during a 3rd period time out. The Celts were in the midst of completely dominating his team and he was telling them to keep their chins up and keep playing hard (good message). He went on to tell them that there are whole bunch of teams who would be happy to be playing right now (bad message). I think this was telling his team that they can't play with the Celtics and they should just soak in the playoff experience and be happy to have made it this far.
Now, one could easily argue they are indeed fortunate to have advanced as the 8th seed when Rose went down, but still, they'd played their butts off in the first two games and showed that they can play toe to toe with the Celtics, and indeed beat them.
I'm sure he'll ring a different tone with the team today and tomorrow. It's just rang of conceding to superiority to me.
Had I not heard this, I would have thought the Sixers could bounce back in Game 4. Now, I'm pretty convinced it's the Celts in 5.